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BATTERY E 
IN FRANCE 




BATTERY E 
IN FRANCE 



149th Field Artillery 
Rainbow (42nd) Division 



By 

Frederic R. Kilner 



CHICAGO 

1919 



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Copyright, WVi 

by 

Frederic R. Kilner 



JUL 21 i'ilO 

©CI,A530299 



As we shall the more devote ourselves, in 
peace and in war, to the cause of our 
Country's honor because they gave up their lives 
for its sake, so do we dedicate this record to 
them, the memory and the loss of whom its 
pages recall: 



CAPTAIN FREDERICK W. WATERS 

Coblenz, Germany, January 13, 1919 

LIEUTENANT JOHN E. COWAN 

Jonchery-sur-Suippes, France, July 17, 1918 

CORPORAL STANLEY S. STEVENS 

Camp Coetquidan, France, November 21, 1917 

PRIVATE GUY O. FOSTER 

Fere-en-Tardenois, France, August 10, 1918 

PRIVATE GEORGE HAMA 

Bulson, France, November 9, 1918 

PRIVATE AARON F. PARKHURST 

Chcry-Chartreusc, France, Augusts, 1918 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

Since a battery comprises nearly two hundred men, and 
includes activities of diverse kinds at different places, it is 
obviously impossible for a brief narrative such as this, com- 
piled by a single person, to furnish complete details on all 
of them. To suggest the life of the men in their various 
sorts of work, to trace as accurately as possible the accom- 
plishments of the battery on the front in France, and to 
recount the outstanding incidents and events of its history, 
is as much as can be claimed for these chapters. Primarily 
intended for the members of the battery, these pages will, I 
hope, furnish an outline on which each one can reconstruct 
the days of his own experiences in France from the vol- 
uminous resources of his memory. To that end, dates and 
places are indicated fully, and pains have been taken to 
have these accurate and exact. 

To Lloyd Holton, Stuart Lawrence, Waldo Magnusen, 
Harry E. Loomis, Jr., and Harland Beatty thanks are due 
for the photographs supplying the interesting illustrations, 
which tell better than many words how the men of the bat- 
tery lived. The meagreness of the illustrations is due to the 
army order forbidding cameras being taken to the front. 
We regret that this order was in rare instances violated, but 
are glad to be able to publish the photographs which resulted 
from such violations. 

This book itself is a lasting indication of the gratitude 
of the men of the battery to the relatives and friends 
included in the Battery E chapter of the 149th F. A, War 
Relief, from whom came the funds for the publication of 
this volume. The acknowledgement of this generosity is 
made with the recollection of many previous kindnesses, so 
numerous, indeed, that an adequate appreciation of the serv- 
ices and sacrifices of those at home is impossible to express. 



PREFACE 

Battery E of the First Field Artillery of the Illinois 
National Guard was organized at Chicago, October 23, 1915, 
Captain Henry J. Reilly in command. On June 27, 1916, it 
was mustered into federal service for duty on the Mexican 
border, and mustered out October 28, 1916, after training 
at Leon Springs, Arkansas, and taking part in the famous 
"Austin Hike." The battery met for drill at the Dexter 
Pavilion, Union Stock Yards, Chicago, on Monday nights. 

After the United States declared war, April 6, 1917, the 
battery began recruiting to bring its strength up to war 
basis, and drilled Monday and Friday evenings. Sergeants 
Herman Leprohon and Thomas Atkinson, of the Regular 
Army, who directed the drill at this time, were commis- 
sioned first lieutenants in the regiment before it left Chi- 
cago. May 22 Paul E. Landrus was appointed First Ser- 
geant, John J. O'Meara, Supply Sergeant, and F. O. 
Johnson, Stable Sergeant. 

Governor Lowden ordered the battery into service June 
30, 1917, when drill became daily. July 9, the battery en- 
trained for Fort Sheridan with its 30 horses, guns, caissons 
and supplies. First Lieutenant Irving Odell was in com- 
mand, Captain Reilly having become colonel of the regi 
ment, now the 149th U. S. Field Artillery. The regiment 
was mustered into federal service July 20, as part of the 
67th F. A. Brigade and of the 42d Division, already named 
the Rainbow Division by Secretary of War Baker because 
of its national composition, comprising units of twenty-six 
states. 

At Camp Geismar, as Colonel Reilly named the regi- 
ment's encampment alongside Fort Sheridan, there was 
daily drill with the American 3-inch pieces. On July 30 the 
regiment was reviewed by General Berry, who was inspect- 
ing units of the 42d Division. Some of the "border vet- 
erans" of the battery had gone to the first Reserve Officers' 



Training Camp, and about twenty-five former members of 
Battery E received commissions. 

On September 3, 1917, the regiment left Chicago for 
Camp Mills, First Lieutenant Howard R. Stone in com- 
mand, Captain Odell having been transferred to Second 
Battalion headquarters as captain-adjutant. Sergeant John 
Cowan and Corporal Russel Royer had shortly before been 
commissioned second lieutenants, the former remaining in 
the battery and the latter going to Headquarters Company. 

September 7, 1917, First Lieutenant Lawrence B. Rob- 
bins was transferred from Battery C to the command of 
Battery E, and shortly afterwards commissioned captain. 

Having no horses or guns, the regiment received plenty 
of foot drill, relieved by short periods of setting-up exer- 
cises, trigger-squeeze pistol practice and instruction in first 
aid to the wounded. The foot drill became hikes through 
Garden City and vicinity, then regimental reviews, and 
finally exhibited the accomplishment of the men in reviews 
by Secretary of War Baker and Major-General Mann. 

Evenings, Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and 
Sundays gave generous opportunity for sampling the varied 
diversions of New York City, and the hospitality of the 
residents of the neighboring towns of Long Island. And 
these pleasures were well sampled ! The batteries of the 
149th entertained the corresponding organizations of the 
150th and 151st regiments on the evening of September 28, 
when Colonel Reilly's description of warfare in France fur- 
nished interesting instruction, and abundant refreshments 
caused general content and satisfaction. The following 
week, the 151st returned the compliment, with equal enjoy- 
ment. 

October 2, an additional detail of men left for Newport 
News, where they joined the men who had left Fort Sher- 
idan with the horses, at the remount station. About this 
time Lieutenant Packard, from the Plattsburg camp, was 
attached to Battery E. 

Constant instruction in making packs and rolls hinted 
at leaving. Then the making of allotments and the taking 
out of war risk insurance, the packing of duffle bags, and 
the boxing of all Q. M. supplies made us ready for departure 
by the middle of the month, and waiting for orders to 
France. 

10 



CHAPTER I 
On Board the "President Lincoln" 

The mounting flames of a bonfire cast a flickering red 
light down the battery street. Burning the whole night 
through, to consume boxes, refuse and abandoned material 
of various kinds, these ruddy illuminations in the quarters 
of the 149th Field Artillery, at Camp Mills, Long Island, 
were omens of unusual, and unpublished, happenings. The 
men of the regiment felt the nearness of these events, 
though they had been given no warning of them, and slept, 
fully clothed, with their packs still rolled as they had been 
at inspection the afternoon before. Covered only by their 
overcoats, the boys tossed uneasily on their canvas cots 
in the chilliness of the night. When one, awakened by the 
cold, ventured to approach the bonfire to warm himself, the 
voice of a sentry warned him away: "No one is allowed 
around the fire. Orders are for no unusual appearance or 
noise." And the chilly one would return to his tent, if not 
to slumber, muttering, "Tonight's the night, all right !" 

At 3 :30 a. m., a whispered summons roused each man. 
A few, who had scoffed at the omens the previous evening, 
rolled their packs by feeble candles. All the cots were 
folded and piled in the shed at the end of the street that 
had housed the battery kitchen. The cooks performed their 
last rites there, by serving coffee and sandwiches. The last 
scraps of paper and other litter in the battery street were 
"policed up," and added to the now dying bonfire. Then 
the batteries were formed, and the regiment, at 5 o'clock, 
October 18, 1917, marched silently out of Camp Mills. 

The hike to the railroad station was a short one. There 
the regiment quickly boarded a waiting train, which pulled 
out at 6, to make the brief journey to the ferry docks in 
Brooklyn. Quickly and quietly, the men boarded the ferry. 
They had been instructed to make no noise, attract no atten- 
tion, and so shield the troop movement as much as possible 

11 



from public (and enemy) notice. But a ferry-boat load of 
khaki-clad youths, when such ferry-boat loads were not so 
numerous as they later became, could not fail to draw the 
eyes of the throngs on their way to business. The journey 
around the Battery and up the Hudson River was punctu- 
ated by cheers and shouts of good-bye from witnesses of our 
departure. At the docks of the Hamburg-American Line, 
where the "Vaterland" and other ocean liners had lain since 
the autumn of 1914, the boys filed onto the wharf and im- 
mediately over the side of the "President Lincoln." 

As he was assigned his place in the hold, each man was 
given two things : a printed sheet of instructions, which was 
to guide his actions on board, and a life-preserver, which, 
hanging like two sofa pillows, one on his breast, the other 
on his back, was to impede all his movements on board. For 
these must be worn night and day, whether one was eating 
or drinking, working or playing; and must be within reach 
when one slept. That last was easy, for they usually served 
as pillows. 

That was one of the precautions against danger from a 
submarine's torpedo. Another was the fire-drill, which 
occurred at unexpected times, either at night, in the midst 
of sleep, or during the day. Since there were between 
5,500 and 6,000 troops on board, exclusive of the crew of 
400, it was important that they should know the quickest 
and easiest way to escape from the ship in case of accident. 
The "President Lincoln," before the war the largest freight 
vessel afloat, was built for the carrying trade and not at all 
for passengers. In each hatch were four, and in some five, 
decks below, and it was a feat to empty all these by the 
narrow iron stairways in the short space of two minutes. At 
the entrance to each hatch were stacked rafts, ready to be 
unlashed and heaved over the side, and every man had a 
place. 

Below, each man had a bunk, a canvas stretcher hung on 
a frame, three tiers high, that ran the length of the hatch, 
narrow aisles separating each double row. Electric lights 
made these good places to lounge and read. But when night 
fell, every light in the ship was extinguished, save only the 
dim blue lights at the stairways. Not even a lighted cigar- 
ette was allowed on deck or at a porthole, lest it betray the 
fleet to some hostile submarine, lurking near under cover of 

12 



darkness. And all day long and the night through, lookouts 
— an officer and one enlisted man — watched the waves from 
the mast heads and from sentry boxes along the side, fore 
and aft, for the ripple of a periscope. 

Excessive precaution was not without good cause. This 
fleet was such as to spur enemy submarines to extraordinary 
activity for several reasons : The vessels were former Ham- 
burg-American Line ships, making their first voyage under 
American colors ; it was a double blow that these German 
boats should not only be employed in the service of the 
United States, but even be used to carry troops and supplies 
to defeat Germany herself. Again, these seven vessels 
transported an entire division at once, the first to be sent 
across the Atlantic as a unit, a division which had received 
much attention because of its composition, an amalgamation 
of National Guard organizations from twenty-six states. 

Battery E mounted guard on the "President Lincoln" 
on the evening of the day the regiment embarked, October 
18, and so a good many of the boys were on deck to see the 
lights of the Statue of Liberty fade behind as the fleet stood 
out to sea during the dark. About midnight the gongs 
sounded an alarm, and everyone was awakened for the first 
fire-drill. But the blue lights at the stairways that were the 
sole illumination, refused to work, and since no one could 
tell in the pitch blackness where to turn or whom to follow, 
the men were sent back to their bunks. 

The next day Battery E went on "K. P." Since more 
than 2.500 men were served in the forward mess hall in 
approximately two hours, the force of "kitchen police" re- 
quired was large. The cooking was done by the regular 
ship's cooks in their kitchen with huge caldrons and im- 
mense kettles. Only the serving was done by the troops. 
It was a particularly hard job that day, for the roughness 
of the open sea had begun to unsteady the boys, and the 
sight of food, let alone serving it for two hours, was enough 
to incapacitate them as kitchen hands. 

After they had gained their sea-legs, however, mess time 
was the important hour of the day, and the chief occupation 
of everybody was waiting for the next meal. The occa- 
sional fire-drills were brief. Calisthenics were necessarily 
light and not long in duration, on account of the lack of 
space on deck. Reading matter was greatly in demand, and 

13 



much time was spent on deck merely in contemplation of 
the sad sea waves, the flying fish, and now and then a school 
of porpoise. On the fifth day out, target practice by the 
ship's gun crews furnished great excitement, and gave us 
greater sense of security when we had seen how accurate 
marksmen the gun-pointers were. 

As a rule, the meals on ship-board were worth anticipat- 
ing. Sunday dinners included chicken, for the last times 
that delicacy appeared on our menu, unless one includes the 
Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys of the first winter in 
France. Eggs, boiled for breakfast, also appeared on the 
menu for the last time, as did fresh fruit, such as apples, 
oranges and bananas. Sweet potatoes were more plentiful 
than the Irish variety, until one began to long for plain 
"spuds." Stew and beans became more frequent as the 
voyage neared its close. But the men who ate in that for- 
ward mess hall will never forget the meal with which Bat- 
tery E, again on "K. P.," celebrated our arrival in port at 
St. Nazaire on the afternoon of October 31, 1917. 

On the morning of the previous day we found that, 
instead of the cruiser and destroyer which had escorted us 
across the Atlantic, there were on all sides of us little, parti- 
colored craft that tore through the water and careered all 
about us, French coast patrol boats. They were camou- 
flaged in that peculiar style, after the fashion of a cubist 
painting, which was to become so common to our eyes later 
on. Far on the horizon that morning we saw, too, a large 
fleet of merchant vessels returning to the United States, and 
the terrific rolls that struck the ship convinced us we were 
in the Bay of Biscay, nearing port. 

"Land ! Land !" was the crv'' next morning. Sure 
enough, there it was ! We thought some ex-New Yorker 
had memories of the island prison in the East River when 
he said : "There's Belle Lsle !" But so it was : Belle-Ile- 
en-mer, a short distance from the harbor of St. Nazaire. 
We reached the port at about 3 o'clock that afternoon, and 
were fast to the dock an hour or two later. 

Evening mess, which was usually begim at 3 :30 or 4 
o'clock, so that it might be over by dark, was delayed till 
5 that day, while everybody hung over the rails to get their 
first sight of France. When they did descend, however, 
Battery E was waiting to serve a meal worthy of the day. 

14 



Roast beef, Irish potatoes, gravy, bread and butter, tea, 
tapioca pudding and fruit cake. Nor was the quantity 
stinted. "We're celebrating tonight !" said Battery E, be- 
hind the serving tables, "Eat your fill, boys !" And an extra 
helping went into the mess kits. When the long line had 
all passed by, the kitchen had sent its last shred of meat, its 
last drop of pudding to the mess hall. The allowance of 
cake for the meal had been far exceeded, but the good- 
natured chief petty officer in charge of the mess stores sent 
again and again for more. 

Five more days were spent on board the boat. The first 
two passed slowly enough. Much time was spent in efit'orts 
to buy chocolate and apples, hoisted aboard by campaign 
hats lowered on long strings from portholes, from the boats 
sculled alongside by fastastically clad fishermen, girls, small 
boys and old women. Or one might watch the German pris- 
oners, marked by a huge "P. G." stamped on the back of 
their uniforms, pushing about the puny French freight cars 
on the docks. Or one might catch a detail to unload freight, 
or stand guard on the dock. 

Saturday afternoon, November 3, the regiment marched 
up through the city and along the Boulevard de I'Ocean, 
St. Nazaire's Riverside Drive. Then we remarked what we 
later became used to seeing, that the women seemed almost 
all to wear black, and practically every man was in a uni- 
form. 

The following afternoon, leave was given to visit the 
town. Hotels, restaurants and pastry shops did a rushing 
business, as did also the old women who kept the stands in 
the market square, selling postcards, souvenirs and all man- 
ner of trinkets. But the time spent ashore was not long, for 
we were called back to unload the ship that night, and 
marched out next day, our packs upon our backs, to a camp 
a short distance from the city. 

At that camp we felt first that economical parsimony 
which the Old World must practice, in contrast to the ex- 
travagant abundance of our own land. The scanty wood 
allowance made the cooks suddenly mindful of the last stray 
splinters. Wash water was available only at certain speci- 
fied times, and a squad of men must be gathered for a bath, 
in order that the water from the showers should not be 

15 



wasted. No wonder, thought we, that the Frenchman 
drinks his eternal "vin rouge," if water is so scarce. 

But our stay at St. Nazaire was not long. There were 
a few days of diverse details, such as shifting boxes and 
equipment on the docks, leveling the drill grounds, and 
excavating for the big reservoir that was later to furnish 
the water supply for the camp. Saturday night the Second 
Battalion marched out of camp shortly after midnight, and 
boarded a train for the short ride northward to the town of 
Guer, in the department of Morbihan. That we were not 
full-fledged soldiers was evidenced by the fact that we made 
the trip in third-class passenger coaches and not in the box- 
cars which were ever afterwards to be our mode of trans- 
portation in France. But the stops were as frequent as they 
were in our later train rides, and it was not until the middle 
of the afternoon, Sunday, November 11, that we arrived at 
Guer. 



Hiin. 






. i 

Macliiiie (iun Mminted for Air Craft 




Tliree Sers;ennts in RonieiKu ille's Ruins 





1 liree Corporals Reaily to Hike 



The Batterv Clerk and tlie Courier 



CHAPTER II 
Training at Camp Coetquidan 

The trip up the long hill on which lay Camp Coetquidan 
was made in trucks. The distance was not more than two 
miles, but the steady upward climb fatigued the boys many 
evenings, when they returned from a supper at the Hotel 
de France, or at Mme. Legrey's chocolate shop, or at one 
of the places that sprang up to supply the demand of the 
soldiers for food. 

The camp was situated on the top of the highest hill in 
a region of gentle slopes of varying heights. From it was a 
wonderful view of the red and brown fields and purple 
woods that composed Brittany's winter scenery. But the 
minds of the boys were not on this, nor on the gloriously 
colored sunrises, as they marched out in mud and snow to 
the drill field early each morning. 

In previous years the French had had a large camp here, 
particularly for manoeuvres in the summer. After the out- 
break of the war, it came to be used as a prison camp. 
When the Second Battalion of the 149th arrived, the French 
troops were no longer there, save such as guarded the prison 
camp, and the German prisoners of war were being moved 
to other quarters a short distance away. To clean out the 
barracks vacated by them, and prepare them for habitation 
by the men of the 149th was the job of the Second Bat- 
talion. 

Clad in dungarees and slickers, instead of their uni- 
forms, so that by shedding all their working clothes they 
could avoid carrying cooties and lice into their own bar- 
racks, the men set to work. The job was done thoroughly. 
First the barracks were cleaned of all refuse, which was 
immediately burned. Then they were sprinkled carefully 
with creolin — walls, ceiling and floor. Next the dirt floor 
was spaded up, sprinkled with creolin once more, and then 
tramped down into a hard surface again. Finally the walls 

17 



and ceiling were given three coats of whitewash. So pains- 
takingly was the work done, and so well were the sanitary 
conditions of the camp maintained, that cooties were un- 
known in the regiment while it was there, save in excep- 
tional cases. 

At the end of the week the First Battalion arrived, and 
the batteries moved into their permanent quarters. Drill on 
the guns commenced the following Monday. At that time 
the battery had no horses, and all its schedule was devoted 
to learning how to handle the French "75." This gun was 
in so many ways different from the American 3-inch piece, 
which the regiment had used at home, that all the men, re- 
cruits and veterans of the Mexican border alike, were 
novices. From 7 :30 to 11 :30 each morning, and 1 to 4 in 
the afternoon, the battery drilled on the guns. 

For a day or two the non-commissioned officers and 
two picked gun squads of privates received intensive in- 
struction on the four guns assigned to the battery. A 
French sergeant conducted the drill at first. Later two 
corporals from the First Division of the United States 
Army replaced him. From the simple exercise of taking 
post, the drill advanced day by day to the simulated firing 
of the battery according to problems like those of artillery 
in action. The men not working on gun squads stood back 
by the limbers and "took data," their attention to the pro- 
ceedings being gauged by one of the drill corporals when he 
pounced on some one for the result of his figures. Interest 
was quite likely to wander when one was more concerned 
with shufifling his feet to warm them a bit, or with searching 
for a dry spot — comparatively speaking — so that his wet 
feet would not become wetter. 

In November this routine was broken by two events, 
one a day of sorrow, when Corporal Stevens died, the other 
a day of rejoicing. Thanksgiving. Following a severe attack 
of pleural pneumonia. Corporal Stanley S. Stevens died in 
the hospital at Camp Coetquidan on the evening of Novem- 
ber 21. Having been in the battery since September, 1915, 
he was very well known in the regiment and had many 
friends in the organization. Even those who had not been 
intimate with him, were saddened by the loss of so fine a 
comrade and so excellent a soldier — the first loss of the 
regiment on the soil of France. The funeral is as beautiful 

18 



a memory to the members of the battery as one could hope 
to have. At noon, November 23, the coffin was carried from 
the hospital, placed upon a caisson, and draped w^ith a large 
American flag. The band led the procession, followed by 
an honorary firing squad of twenty-one French soldiers. 
Next came the fourteen members of Battery E who formed 
the firing squad. Behind the caisson were General Sum- 
meral, commanding the 67th Artillery Brigade, Colonel 
Reilly and officers of the 149th Field Artillery. Next 
marched Battery E, and behind it, the other batteries of the 
regiment. The long column moved slowly down the road, 
to the music of Chopin's "Funeral March," through the 
green pine woods, to a knoll that commanded a beautiful 
view of the valley below. The service, by Chaplain McCal- 
lum, was followed by as perfect a "Taps," and three rifle 
volleys as perfectly fired, as the battery has ever heard. 
Some weeks later was erected a headstone on this spot, 
where several other members of the regiment found a rest- 
ing-place before we quitted Camp Coetquidan. 

Cloaking his sorrow in an effort to create joy for the 
members of the regiment. Corporal Steven's brother, who 
was the Y. M. C. A. representative with the regiment, pro- 
moted a day of games for Thanksgiving, which fell on 
November 29. There were races and contests of various 
kinds, which Battery E won with 26 points. In the foot- 
ball game between the First and Second Battalions, the Sec- 
ond won, 7 to 0, and on the team were seven players from 
Battery E, Weisman, Vinnedge, Pond, George, Monroe, 
Vavrinek and O'Meara. The dinner, at 3 o'clock, was, in 
the matter of food, all one could have asked at home, and 
no one fell in for "seconds." The menu comprised turkey, 
stuffing, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberries, apple cobbler, 
cocoa and nuts. 

Several days later, December 4, the battery had its first 
experience in actual firing. Four guns had been hauled out 
to the range, one from each of two batteries of the battalion 
and two from the other battery. These the batteries took 
turns in firing, drilling on the pieces left in the gun-park on 
the other days of the week. Battery E had its turn Tues- 
day. That afternoon the first gun squads of all eight sec- 
tions — everyone was a cannoneer then, in gun and caisson 
sections alike, before the horses came — left camp about 

19 



noon, to hike about two miles to the range. The firing was 
across a valley at targets on the hillside opposite. The 
ground was soft and the guns jumped badly ; so there was 
little riding of the pieces. The firing ceased at dusk, and 
the pieces were cleaned and greased in the dark. There- 
after the battery fired two days a week, practicing standing 
gun-drill on the other days. 

On the following Sunday the horses which a detail had 
brought up from the remount station at St. Nazaire were 
assigned to the batteries. During the morning the rain fell 
in torrents, and the road to St. Malo, along which the horses 
were taken to water to the troughs near the "Chateau," was 
almost a running stream. Fortunately the afternoon was 
clear. The horses were lined up on the drill field, paired ofif 
in teams, and assigned to the batteries. Drivers were named 
to care for teams, and "Slim" O'Meara became Regimental 
Stable Sergeant. 

About this time came various changes in the battery. 
November 30, First Sergeant Vinnedge, Sergeant Weisman 
and Corporal Richardson left for officers' school at Saumur. 
Sergeant Suter filled the position of "top-cutter" for a short 
time, being succeeded by Sergeant McElhone December 16, 
who was appointed First Sergeant December 27. Lieuten- 
ant Stone had gone to Battery F, taking command when 
Captain Benedict left. Lieutenant Smith had been assigned 
to Battery E on November 20. Later he followed Lieuten- 
ant Stone to F. Lieutenants Ennis, Adams, Apperson, Cro- 
nin, Stapleton and Bowman came to the battery from 
Saumur early in January. Lieutenant Ennis had been with 
the battery as a private on the border. Mechanic Youngs 
went to mechanics' school at Grandicourt on January 4. 
Lieutenant Waters went to the British front for first-hand 
knowledge of trench warfare the same day. 

An engineers' squad was formed, consisting of Corporal 
Pond, Privates Bowra, Dolan, Dunn, George, Overstreet, 
Potter, Foster and Vavrinek, who were mastering the intri- 
cate mysteries of trench digging and camouflage, in order to 
do skillfully the construction of the battery's gun positions 
in the field. In conformance, too, with the new mode of 
warfare to be met, a machine gun crew was picked, includ- 
ing Corporal Buckley and Privates Beniey and McCarthy. 

Upon returning from a day at the range December 19, 

20 



the battery was greeted with the news that the regiment was 
under quarantine and contined to camp on account of a few 
cases of spinal meningitis discovered that day. That ended 
the passes to Rennes, and the evening and Sunday visits to 
Guer, St. Malo and other neighboring villages. The week- 
end passes to Rennes had been much sought for. One left 
camp Saturday afternoon and returned Sunday night, mak- 
ing the 40-kilometre trip in two to four hours, depending on 
the success with which the diminutive engine that pulled the 
train made the ascent of the hills en route. On one occasion 
it could not make the grade on either the first or second 
attempt, sliding back down hill each time. Finally the boys 
all jumped off, and without the burden of their weight and 
aided by their pushing, the engine, puffing hard, made the 
top, bringing forth hearty American cheers, to the bewil- 
dered amusement of the handful of French passengers. 

Rennes, the ancient capital of Brittany and haunt of the 
famous Du Guesclin, held much of historic interest. Being 
also a wealthy city, manufacturing and commercial, and 
containing at that time big hospitals, from which convales- 
cent Russian, Serbian, Greek and Italian, as well as French 
soldiers walked about the streets, it held a great deal more 
of present interest to these Americans. 

Guer, with its "epiceries," which extended their stock 
of merchandise according to American tastes ; its cafes, and 
its restaurants, attracted many visitors from camp Saturday 
and Sunday afternoons. St. Malo, over the hill in the oppo- 
site direction, the "Chateau" on the way thither, and the 
collection of places about the "Bellevue," at the entrance to 
camp, furnished sustenance nearer at hand. Cider — 2 sous 
a glass and 6 sous a bottle — was popular and cheap ; "vin 
rouge" and more select and expensive drinks were also 
plentiful. The meals were chiefly omelets and French fried 
potatoes. One could never be sure about the meat, what it 
was or whether one could eat it, although there was not the 
dire scarcity or absolute lack of it that met us later near 
the battle front. The bread to be had was exceedingly good, 
as was also the jam, which was, however, extremely high- 
priced — 4 or 5 francs for a large can — and the hungry appe- 
tites that an army meal did not nearly satisfy after a hard, 
cold day's work were appeased with this simple fare on 
many evenings. 

21 



But the visits to these places of refreshment which the 
quarantine ended were not greatly missed. For the Christ- 
mas packages had begun to arrive. There were not so many 
soldiers in France then that restrictions need be placed upon 
soldiers' mail. Consequently the packages from home were 
many, and contained all manner of good things. They com- 
menced to flow in a week or two before the holiday, and 
continued to arrive long afterwards. Best of all, however, 
on Christmas day, were the letters from home telling that 
our first letters from France had been received and read. 

Christmas morning we heard, instead of the usual re- 
veille march, a special Christmas selection of the band, 
"Adeste, Fideles." After breakfast — bacon, beans, dough- 
nuts, bread and coffee — the battery gathered about the 
Christmas tree in the mess shack. Holly and mistletoe, 
from the neighboring woods, decorated the walls. At one 
side was a brilliant imitation of a hearth. Santa Claus 
(alias Corporal Pond) handed out the packages which the 
men of the battery had contributed to his pack the evening 
before and also a package of cigarettes to each man, the 
gift of Captain Robbins. Later in the day were distributed 
boxes of candy, a pound box for each man, which were the 
gift of Major and Mrs. Judah. During the morning Major 
Redden passed through the barracks, and his greetings for 
the day were returned heartily and vociferously. 

At 3 :30 was served dinner, an array of turkey, mashed 
potatoes, dressing, gravy, apple pie and cocoa that more 
than extinguished a man's appetite. In the evening the 
band played. The infectious rhythm of "Allah's Holiday" 
and similar pieces drew the men from their letters, card- 
games, magazines, etc., and soon the street was filled with 
a singing, dancing throng of soldiers. Soon all, soldiers and 
band, paraded to the officers' quarters. Nothing would 
satisfy them but Major Redden's appearance and a speech 
from him. This he gave, to the delight of all the men. Then 
he passed out cigars till they were gone, and ended with 
regrets that there were not more and a hope that another 
Christmas would see all of them home in the midst of all 
comfort. 

The New Year was introduced in true military fashion. 
The band played the old year out. At one minute before 
midnight, "Taps" was blown. Then, immediately, "First 

22 



Call" announced the new year, and "Reveille" ushered in 
1918. 

With the new year began our preparations for service 
at the front. At 8 :30 New Year's day, the regiment was 
inspected by Colonel Reilly in its field equipment of steel 
helmets, woolen helmets, packs, side-arms and rubber boots. 
Our "tin derbies" had been issued the evening before, and 
were just beginning to furnish the unfailing fascination of 
revealing their long list of varied uses : candle-stick, camp- 
stool, market-basket, cymbals, wash basin, etc. 

There was no turkey on this holiday, but the menu was 
pretty nearly as good as on preceding fete-days : Roast 
beef, mashed potatoes, creamed carrots, lettuce salad, apple 
cobbler and coffee. In the packages from home were ample 
additions to the battery mess in the form of candy, cake, 
cookies and occasionally cocoa. The three stoves, at each 
end and in the middle of the long shack, formed the centers 
of parties limited in size to the number who could squeeze 
into the warm circle. The others, engaged in reading letters 
from home or writing in reply, sat or lay on their cots, iron 
beds with steel springs, furnished with mattress, pillow and 
plenty of blankets. On the shelf between the windows and 
on the row of hooks below, were arranged each man's be- 
longings. Electric lights cast some glow from the beams 
above, but reading or writing demanded the aid of a candle 
at one's side. Save when the rain, falling heavily, dripped 
through the roof, so that certain unlucky men had to 
stretch their shelter-halves as awnings over their cots, the 
quarters were comfortable enough, so comfortable that at 
a later date, in some muddy gun-pit, we looked back with 
longing upon the winter months at Coetquidan. 

While the cannoneers had been firing at the range, the 
drivers had been busy with horse exercise and grooming. 
Four guns had been left in permanent position at the range. 
Now the time had come when we were to practice on other 
ranges, and our guns to be taken thither by our own drivers 
and horses each time. The first of these occasions is his- 
toric, for it was the day of Sergeant's Newell's famous 
report. 

Rain had caused postponement on the first day set, Mon- 
day, January 7. Two days later snow made the attempt 
abortive, blowing in the windows all night and lying on the 

23 



ground several inches deep when we arose, at 4 a. m. At 6 
the battaHon was harnessed and hitched, ready to start. The 
ground was so shppery and the winter morning was still so 
dark that the drivers did not mount, but led their horses. 
Things went difficultly but regularly until the Third Section 
piece was leaving the gun park. There was a slight down- 
hill slope ; the brakes refused to work ; the horses, new to 
artillery harness, became tangled up, and ended by running 
away, disappearing from the column into the darkness. 
Sergeant Newell was having some concern over starting the" 
caisson. When he caught up with the column on the road, 
he learned his piece was missing. At the call, "Chiefs of 
sections, report," he approached the captain, saluted and 
said: 

"Sir, I understand my piece has run away." 

"Understand?" exclaimed the battery commander. "My 
God, man ! Don't you know ?" 

The piece had not gone far. The horses had entangled 
the harness with the pole of a wagon at the end of the gun 
park, and halted. No damage was done, and a fresh start 
was made. Out on the road another runaway started, but 
came to a quick end when a horse fell. To the perseverance 
of Lieutenant Apperson is due the fact that the piece at last 
reached the range, — a stretch of trackless snow, with no 
sign of another gun. The carriage had taken the wrong 
road, and missed the battalion, which had given up the 
journey and returned to camp. 

Regimental firing succeeded battalion, and brigade suc- 
ceeded regimental. Hikes, with blanket rolls on the car- 
riages and packs on the men's backs, were frequent. One 
of these, through Plantain les Forges and Plelan, took the 
road along the edge of the forest in which the heroes of the 
lays of Brittany, according to legend, once lived, and fought, 
and had high adventures. Other preparations for service at 
the front followed. With the departure of the 51st Artil- 
lery Brigade, of the 26th Division, for the front, we began 
to look forward to the day when we should entrain. 

Late in January we were issued gas masks, both British 
and French. Sergeant Bolte and Corporal Holton were 
appointed Gas N. C. O.'s for the battery. On February 6 
the men tested their masks in an abri filled with chlorine 
gas, some coming out just in time to give an exhibition gas- 

24 



mask drill before our new brigade and divisional command- 
ers, Brigadier-General McKenstrie and Major-General 
Menoher. An officer from the British army gave us a more 
vivid acquaintance with the effects of gas in warfare in 
some lectures at the Y. M. C. A. 

After the 51st Brigade had left the camp, the Q. M. 
details at the railroad station at Guer fell to the 67th Bri- 
gade. Until the day of our leaving, our time was thence- 
forth largely occupied with details which spent the day 
unloading rations, forage and fuel at Guer. Since these 
gave the men an opportunity to get meals in the town, and 
sometimes to spend the evenings there, these details were 
not unpopular. 

Saturday, February 9, following a mounted inspection, 
in which the regiment was equipped as for the field, we con- 
sidered ourselves on our way to war. The guard that night 
began the wearing of steel helmets. Duffle bags were or- 
dered packed. The following evening they were collected, 
and taken to the railroad station at Guer. Long will the 
men of Battery E remember the night they were hauled out 
of bed twice to push the wagons out of the mud, the night 
they unwittingly gave their last farewell to their duffle bags, 
which they expected to see so soon, yet were to see again 
never. 

At the end of January, Harry Overstreet, who had been 
with the battery on the Mexican border, rejoined, after hav- 
ing seen plenty of activity in the vicinity of Verdun with 
the French Ambulance Service, winning the Croix de 
Guerre. With him came Franklin Kearfott, who had been 
in the same unit with him. February 10, Andre Tubach, 
formerly of France and Woodlawn, also joined Battery E. 

February 12, Sergeant O'Meara succeeded First Ser- 
geant McElhone, who returned to the charge of the Second 
Section, Sergeant Suter going to the Fourth Section. 

Saturday, February 16, the regiment began to leave 
Camp Coetquidan, Headquarters Company and Battery A 
going that morning, while the band played American airs. 
The following afternoon Battery E hiked to Guer. There 
was a long wait while Battery D pulled out. Then guns, 
caissons, wagons and horses were packed on flat cars in 
short order. The men were first distributed thirty men to 
a box-car of the type made famious by the label, "Chevaux 

25 



8, Hommes 40," about half the size of an American box-car. 
In the cars was an intricate contrivance in the shape of 
benches which took up so much space that, with their bulky 
packs in every nook and corner, the men had little space 
more than to sit down. Sleep was impossible, so cold was 
the first night, except for those who, tired to exhaustion, 
dozed off, to wake up later feeling half frozen. 

Next day the presence of a few empty box-cars at the 
tail of the train was discovered. By using these, the num- 
ber of men in a car was reduced one-half. When the 
benches were taken out, also, the quarters were roomy 
enough for some comfort. At the occasional stops the men 
had an opportunity to get out to stretch themselves. Some- 
times a couple of French Territorials (men too old or other- 
wise unfit for service) were on hand with hot black coffee 
in which there was just enough touch of rum to make one 
feel its presence. Many, many times subsequently was such 
a cup of hot coffee cause for great thankfulness. Indeed, 
it was on that trip, for the cold rations — hard tack, corned 
beef, canned tomatoes, canned pork and beans, and jam — 
left one thirsty and cold. 

Our train had pulled out of the station at Guer about 
dusk Sunday evening. Tuesday we seemed headed for 
Paris, but, after a glimpse of Versailles, we skirted it to the 
south. Resuming our eastward course, we turned south in 
Lorraine, reaching Gerberviller about midnight Wednesday, 
February 20. 



26 



CHAPTER III 
Trench Warfare in Lorraine 

Unloading at Gerberviller was far different from the 
easy job of loading at Guer. The night was black. On 
account of the proximity of the front, no lights could be 
used. Not a match's flare, not a cigarette's glow, was 
allowed, lest it serve as a target for some bombing aero- 
plane. There was no loading platform, and the carriages 
and wagons which had been rolled across ramps directly 
onto the flat cars had to be coaxed and guided down planks 
steeply inclined from the car's side to the ground. Han- 
dling the horses packed closely in box-cars was a difficult 
task in utter darkness. 

Dawn was just breaking when the battery pulled out. 
A grey light showed us the ruins of the town of Gerber- 
viller as we passed through. The houses stood like spec- 
tres, stripped of the life and semblance of home which they 
had held before the German wave had swept this far in 
August, 1914, and then, after a few days, had receded, 
leaving them ruins. Four walls, perhaps not so many, were 
all that remained of building after building ; windows were 
gone, roofs fallen, and inside were piles of brick and stone, 
in which, here and there, grass had found root. 

At the village of Moyen the battery stopped long enough 
to water the horses. At 10:30 we arrivecl in Vathimenil, 
where the battery halted till 1 o'clock, and mess was served. 
In the afternoon in the dust and heat of a sunshiny day 
such as Lorraine can produce after a cold spring night, the 
battery hiked through St. Clermont to Luneville, the can- 
noneers following the carriages on foot. 

There we were quartered in an old barrack of French 
lancers, whose former stables housed our horses. Big, 
clean rooms, on the third floor, were assigned to Battery E. 
With bed ticks filled with straw, we made this a comfort- 
able home. 

27 



A practice review the following morning and another, 
the real thing, in the afternoon, before a French general 
and his staff, formally introduced us to Lorraine. In our 
free hours during the day and in the evening, we added to 
this acquaintance by pretty thorough familiarity with the 
city of Lvmeville. 

Though its nearness to the battle front restricted trade 
and industry a great deal, yet its shops, restaurants and 
cafes proved a paradise for the men w^ho remained there 
at the horse-line, as the battery's song, "When We Were 
Down in Luneville," attests. Though the streets were abso- 
lutely dark, behind the shuttered windows and the dark- 
ened doors business was brisk enough. At 8 o'clock, how- 
ever, all shops were closed, and soldiers must be off the 
streets by 8:30. 

These restrictions were, in fact, precautions against 
enemy aeroplanes. Of these we had close enough exper- 
ience on our third night in the city, when a bomb fell in 
the fields that lay back of the barracks, shaking the windows 
by its explosion. 

The cannoneers did not stay long in Luneville. Febru- 
ary 25 they marched out of the city with their packs on 
their backs, up near Marainviller. There were between 
forty and fifty men altogether, including the four gun crews 
and the engineers' detail. When we marched along a road 
screened from the enemy by a mat of boughs stretched by 
wires between high poles along one side of the way, we 
knew we were not far from the front. The big thrill came, 
however, when, turning off the high road, we went forward 
one squad at a time at intervals of about 200 yards. The 
chief object was to avoid attracting the notice of some 
chance enemy aeroplane by the movement of a considerable 
body of men. To our minds the precaution seemed for the 
purpose of limiting casualties, in case a shell burst on the 
road, to the men of only one squad. 

But we took our way in peace up the hill in front of 
us, and carried up supplies and tools that followed on the 
ration cart. We put all in a big abri — a marvelous piece 
of work, of long passages, spacious rooms, wooden floors 
and stairways, electric lights, and flues for stove chimneys. 
Then we discovered that this was not for us, but for some 
brigadier-general and his staff when he directed an opera- 

28 



tion at the front. So we moved ourselves and baggage to 
another big abri not far away and not much less comfort- 
able, except that it lacked the wooden floors, the electric 
lights, and the spaciousness of the rooms which the first 
abri possessed. 

The next four days were spent in preparations for 
building a battery position. The spot chosen was in a 
hollow, back of a gently rising slope. The woods near by 
and the tall thickets made good concealment, but the ground 
was rather marshy in the wet weather we were then hav- 
ing. Part of the men began to dig, and part wove twigs 
through chicken wire to stretch over the excavations as 
camouflage. From 7 a. m. to 5 p. m. was a long arduous 
day, particularly since it was begun and ended by a hike of 
two miles from the dug-out to the position. Rain fell most 
of the time, soaking through slickers and blouses to one's 
very skin. 

Two of the days the gunners, No. 1 and No. 2 men of 
each section spent at a French battery near by, to gain ex- 
perience in actual firing. Little firing was done — only 24 
rounds per gun one day and 15 rounds the second, for in 
this quiet sector there was little ordinarily but reprisal fire 
— but the men learned quickly the actual working of a 
battery. To the Frenchmen the quickness and the constant 
good-humor of the American boys, much younger than the 
average among them, were matters of comment. "Tou- 
jours chantant, toujours riant" (Always singing, always 
laughing), were the words of the lieutenant who fired the 
battery. The warm-hearted hospitality of these French- 
men — resting in this sector from the fearful work, night and 
day, at Verdun and pardonable, one would say, if somewhat 
uneven-tempered and unmindful of others in their fatigue 
from that strain — impressed the Americans in turn. Every 
comfort that the dug-outs afforded was offered to the vis- 
itors, and when the Americans had, in an impromptu quar- 
tette, entertained the Frenchmen with harmonized popular 
songs, the latter summoned a young "chanteur" who sang 
the latest songs from Paris till his voice was weary. 

Orders came to cease work on this position, and none 
too soon. For when the men were returning from work 
there for the last time, about 5 p. m., March 2, the woods 
in the vicinity were deluged with gas shells. 

29 



The following day the gun squads and engineers hiked 
to the town of Laneuveville-aux-Bois, about two kilometres 
away. There they had for billet a big room, formerly the 
police magistrate's office. The town contained only French 
soldiers billeted there en route to the trenches or return. 
So close to the lines was it, that shells fell there frequently. 

Back of the town and to the left was the site of Bat- 
tery E's first gun position. On the far side (from the 
enemy Hues) of a gently sloping hill, covered by tall yellow 
grass, was staked out the four gun pits, with abris between. 
The first work was to construct the camouflage. This was 
composed of strips of chicken wire, in which long yellow 
grass was thinly woven so as to blend with that growing 
around the position. These strips were supported by wires 
stretched from tall stakes, forming the ridge, to short stakes, 
scarcely two feet above the ground, at either side. In 
shape, the result was something like a greenhouse. The 
angles were so graduated that no shadow was cast by the 
sun, and the color blended so well with the surroundings 
that no human trace was visible on the hillside from a dis- 
tance. 

As fast as the camouflage could be "woven" and put in 
place to shield them from observance by the enemy planes 
that whirred overhead in the bright afternoons, the gun pits 
were dug. Platforms and "circulaires" were installed as 
each pit was dug. The guns of the second platoon were 
brought from Luneville on the evening of March 7, and 
caissons of ammunitions followed during the night. The 
rapidity and excellence of the work on the position were 
partly due to the French officer, Captain Frey, whose bat- 
tery was near, who gave his advice and counsel, and to the 
little sergeant, nicknamed "La Soupe" (the words with 
which he always signified his intention to depart for mess, 
for he acquired no English), who constantly supervised the 
work. 

At 9 :50 a. m., March 8, Battery E fired its first shot at 
the front, the Third Section piece having the honor. The 
gun crew was composed of Sergeant Newell, Corporal 
Monroe, and Privates Sexauer, Ekberg, Farrell and Kilner. 
The crew working on the Fourth Section piece, which reg- 
istered the same morning, included Sergeant Suter, Cor- 
poral Holton, and Privates O'Reilly, O'Brien, Ladd, Colvin 
and Kulicek. 

30 



Until the first platoon's guns came up, the gun crews of 
that platoon alternated on the pieces with the crews of the 
second platoon, who could sleep in the billet in town on 
their nights off. The men on the guns had two watches to 
keep, one at the guns, and one at the "rocket post" on top 
the hill, to notify the battery if a red rocket, the signal 
for a barrage, appeared at points laid out on a chart. At 
first there were two barrages, Embennenil and Jalindet, the 
names of two towns in whose direction the different fires 
lay. If the sentinel on the hill-top shouted either of these 
names, the sentinel at the position was to fire the guns and 
awake the crews. The names, unusual and difficult to ears 
unfamiliar with French, were not easy to remember. From 
that difficulty developed the "Allabala" barrage which made 
Hosier famous. 

Seeing a rocket rise in the vicinity of Embermenil 
(whether white or red is a mystery), he started to shout 
the name, but in his excitement could not pronounce the 
French word, and stuttered forth a succession of syllables 
like some Arabian Nights' incantation. Whatever it was, 
"Allabala" or something else, it worked. The guns were 
fired — until an order from the O. P. called a halt, declaring 
the alarm false. 

The First and Second Section pieces were brought from 
Luneville on the evening of March 15, and registered the 
next day. The First Section gun crew was composed of 
Sergeant Bolte, Corporal Fred Howe and Privates Nicko- 
den, Freeburg, Hosier, Wallace and Hodgins ; the Second 
Section crew of Sergeant McElhone, Corporal Clark, Pri- 
vates Donald Brigham, Heacham, Nixon and Herrod. 

Harch 17, 1918, was remarkable not because it was 
Sunday or St. Patrick's day so much as because on that 
day Battery E's camouflage burnt. In the course of a 10- 
round reprisal fire, about 4 p. m., the flame from the muzzle 
of the Second Section gun set ablaze the grass woven in 
the wire netting overhead. In a second the covering was 
in flames. The dry grass burnt like tinder. The men beat 
the blaze with sand bags, but could check it but little in the 
face of the intense heat and thick smoke. By tearing off 
several strips of netting, they succeeded in preventing the 
fire's spreading to the other end of the position. Within 
a short space of time the first platoon's camouflage was 

31 



changed from yellow grass to black ashes. The work of 
seven or eight days was undone in as many minutes. 

On so clear and bright a day there was grave danger 
that the position would be betrayed to enemy observation 
by the flames, or by the black scar they had left, or even by 
the men's activity in repairing it. A few bursts of shrapnel 
gave warning of the danger. Immediately as much of the 
burnt surface as could be was covered with rolls of painted 
canvas on wire netting, such as the French artillery used. 
Then all the men were set to gathering grass in the fields 
back of the position. Not long after, about fifty men from 
D and F batteries came over to help, and all the available 
men were brought out in the chariot du pare from the 
battery's horse-line at Luneville. So eagerly and rapidly 
did all of them work that the old netting was restretched 
and woven full of grass by midnight. 

During the next two days the firing was small, only a 
few rounds occasionally. The chief work was digging the 
abris and carrying up beams and concrete blocks from the 
road for their construction. 

On March 20 the battery was engaged in tearing down 
enemy barbed wire, firing 216 rounds per gun during the 
day, in preparation for an attack that night. At 7 :40 p. m. 
commenced the actual bombardment. A few minutes be- 
fore that time 75's began to bark from the woods to our 
left and in the rear of us. The reports gradually grew in 
number. At the appointed moment, our guns began to bang 
away. For the next two hours and forty-five minutes, the 
noise was deafening. Batteries of whose existence we had 
not the slightest suspicion were firing near us. Every hil- 
lock and clump of trees seemed to blaze with gun flashes. 
Joined with the constant bark and bang of the 75's near by 
was the deep thunderous roar of heavier cannon in the 
distance. 

At 10 o'clock the firing began to die away. Half an 
hour later only a few shots at long intervals could be heard. 
Fatigued with their strenuous and racking work, the men 
eagerly attacked the mess just then brought up to them. 
Nearly all were a little deaf from their guns' racket. A 
few, on the gun crews, were totally oblivious to all sound 
whatsoever, and could comprehend only signs. 

The first published account of an engagement of the 
42d Division was brief and anonymous. In the Paris edi- 

32 





sr?i^ 









tion of the "New York Herald" of March 22, 1918, at the 
end of a column on the first page telling of the decoration 
of Corporal Alexander Burns and other members of the 
regiment appeared this paragraph, under date of March 21 : 

"Members of the American force made a raid last night. 
Following a long barrage, the boys went over in good 
shape, but the German trenches were deserted, the long 
heavy Allied barrage having driven every one out. No 
American was hurt or killed." 

The enemy's reply to us did not come till the next morn- 
ing. Roused at 4 to stand by the guns, the cannoneers had 
scarcely occupied their posts when shells began to drop 
dangerously near. Captain Robbins ordered everyone into 
the abris till the shelling ceased. Half an hour later we 
went out to find that a gas shell had made the officers' abri 
and vicinity untenable, all our telephone wires were cut, 
and shell fragments had torn up things here and there. 
How Nickoden fared, who had been out at the rocket post 
on the hill-top during it all, we learned when he was relieved 
shortly after. Hearing not a sound, he was aware that 
shells were falling near only when he saw them plow up 
the ground within a few hundred feet of him. Corporal 
Buckley was wounded by a shell fragment and Private 
McCarthy was badly gassed that morning, in the machine- 
gun post at the top of the hill. 

Private (later Corporal) Mangan was recommended for 
the D. S. C. by the regimental commander "for volunteer- 
ing to and aiding the French in keeping open a telephone 
line running from a forward observation station across the 
open to the rear. This on March 19 and again on March 
20, when the telephone line was repeatedly cut by an intense 
enemy bombardment of heavy caliber shells from both guns 
and trench mortars." The French cited Mangan for the 
Croix de Guerre for his conduct on this occasion also. 

Orders to move came that day. A few more shells 
landed within a few yards of the position in the afternoon, 
and one end of Laneuveville-aux-Bois received considerable 
shrapnel. But we pulled out safely that evening, reaching 
Luneville at midnight. 

Two days later the regiment left Luneville on a 120- 
kilometre hike to the divisional area, in the vicinity of 
Langres, where the division was to spend some time in 

33 



manoeuvres. But the orders were countermanded before 
the regiment had gone more than its first day's hike, on 
account of the Germans' success in their first big offensive 
of the spring on the northern front. 

So the battery remained for a week at Remenoville, in 
readiness to return to the front upon the receipt of orders. 
During those seven days of sunshiny weather, in the bright 
warmth of early spring, the men basked in ease and com- 
fort. Gun drill for the cannoneers and grooming for the 
drivers occupied the mornings. The afternoons the men 
had to themselves, for games of horseshoes, writing letters 
to make up for lost time at the front, baths in the cold 
brook, and washing clothes in the village fountain. Eggs 
and potatoes and milk were abundant in the town — until 
the battery's consumption depleted the supply — and the men 
ate as often in some French kitchen as in their battery mess 
line. Some boys "slipped one over on the army," too, by 
sleeping between white sheets in soft big beds, renting a 
room for the munificent sum of one franc a day, instead 
of rolling up in their blankets in the haymow where they 
were billeted. 

The following Saturday, the battery hiked to Fontenoy- 
la-Joute, on its way back to the front. Easter Sunday, 
March 31, was spent there, the band playing in front of the 
"mairie," on the steps of which the chaplain held the 
church services. Rain fell intermittently in a depressing 
drizzle. Pulling out in the afternoon, the battery reached 
the spot they since call "Easter Hill," where some French 
batteries had their horse-lines. There the battery had its 
evening mess — stew^and while waiting for orders to move 
on, the men slept wherever there was shelter and dryness — 
on sacks full of harness, in caisson boxes, under tarpaulins 
stretched over the pieces. At 1 a. m. the guns pulled out, 
arriving in position as day was breaking. 

Sergeant Bolte had gone to officers' school at Saumur 
from Remenoville, and Sergeant Landrus took charge of 
the First Section in his place. At Fontenoy, Sergeant 
Newell was sent to the hospital with acute bronchitis ; so 
Sergeant Wright went to the front in charge of the Third 
Section. Sergeant Newell did not return to the battery, 
but went from the hospital to Saumur, returning later to 
the regiment as a second lieutenant in Battery F, after 
serving a while in the 32d Division. 

34 



The new positions were near Montigny, the first platoon 
to the left of the town, the second platoon just in back of 
it. Both were abandoned French positions, but much dif- 
ferent in construction ; 163, the first platoon's position, was 
constructed well underground. Only the embrasures 
through which the guns fired were exposed to the enemy's 
fire. On the other hand, 162, the position of the second 
platoon, was covered only by camouflage, with the excep- 
tion of the abris, of course. An 8-foot trench, instead of 
a tunnel, connected the abris and gun emplacements, and 
the position was much lighter and dryer than 163. But the 
solid construction of the latter was of fortunate advantage 
when the enemy directed its fire on it for several hours 
continuously on two occasions. 

After one night on "Easter Hill," the horse-lines moved, 
with a stop next night at Azerailles, to the Ferme de Gram- 
mont, between Merviller and Baccarat. The Second Bat- 
talion occupied old French stables, which long use had 
made veritable mudholes. Piles of ooze and "gumbo" had 
been dug out and these were constantly added to, but 
still the mire was so bad that it was fatal to loose rubber 
boots. Grooming seemed a hopeless task, so far as looks 
were concerned. 

This was the first time a divisional sector was taken 
over completely by American forces. The French were 
sending all their available troops to the northern part of 
the front, where one big enemy offensive followed another. 
So, as a matter of fact, this section of the front was very 
lightly defended. But the spirit of the American soldiers, 
who took this light task as seriously and as determinedly as 
they did far heavier and more vital ones later on, made up 
for lack of numbers, and the enemy was worsted in every en- 
counter. The discipline and care that was the rule in this 
comparatively easy work during the three and a half 
months in Lorraine formed the basis of the division's splen- 
did record in the big battles of later months, and was the 
chief reason why the division, though engaged in all the 
major operations of the American army, and, in addition, at 
the vital point of General Gouraud's army in Champagne, 
in the biggest battle of the war, spending a greater num- 
ber of days at the front than any other division, has not so 
big a casualty list as some other divisions. 

35 



Since both positions occupied by the platoons were known 
to the enemy, and our only safety lay in maintaining his 
belief that they were abandoned, no one was allowed to 
enter or leave them during the daytime. At first so rigid 
was this rule that we could not even go to Montigny for 
meals. Instead, the raw rations were divided among the 
sections, and the men cooked them as best they could in their 
mess kits over the little stoves that were in each abri. But 
cooking could only be done at night, lest the smoke betray us. 
So seven or eight hungry men, having eaten hard-tack and 
a little cold food during the day, crowded around the little 
stove from nightfall till early morning, doing their un- 
skilled best to make something edible out of hardtack, 
canned corned beef, canned tomatoes, potatoes, a slab of 
bacon, coffee, some sugar, and occasionally some beef cut 
up into small slices or cubes. The result was that the men 
got neither much sleep nor much nourishment, and after 
about ten days of this sort of living, the meals were cooked 
in the kitchen at Montigny and then carried in heat-con- 
taining cans to the positions. 

Even when conditions were thus bettered, there were still 
heavy inroads on sleep by the large amount of sentry duty 
required. In a clump of bushes at the top of the mound in 
which was dug the position, was placed an indicator board, 
similar to that at Laneuveville-aux-Bois, on which were 
marked several barrages. From 6 p. m. to 6 a. m., a sentry 
stood at this post watching the horizon for red rockets sig- 
naling for a barrage. In addition, one man, and sometimes 
two men, had to be on watch in each gun pit, ready to lire a 
barrage the instant it was called for. For a time this re- 
quired four hours' watch every night for each man. Later 
this was reduced to two, or at most three hours a night. 

April 6 Battery E commenced work on a new position 
halfway on the road from Montigny to Reherrey. Under 
the direction of a camouflage non-com. from the engineers, 
wires were stretched on top of stakes, forming a frame not 
unlike that of a greenhouse roof, which was covered by 
slashed burlap on a backing of chicken netting, a species of 
camouflage manufactured by the French by the millions of 
square yards. It hid whatever was beneath it, and cast no 
shadows, and blended in tone with the grassy fields around. 
When the camouflage was up, a trench eight feet deep 

36 



was dug the length of the position. From it saps were 
started downward and forward from the trench. These 
carried the work into soHd rock, necessitating drilHng and 
blasting every foot of the way. At the same time the gun 
pits and ammunition shelters were begun. Work was slow 
because of the hardness of the rock, and the available men 
were few. After staying a few days in Reherrey, the squad 
of engineers had moved to Montigny. There, in billet No. 
19, they and the extra cannoneers, sent up later from the 
horse-lines, lodged. To speed the work, some of the gun 
crews came from the positions each day. After several 
weeks, drivers were sent from the horse-lines to exchange 
places with some of the cannoneers. A well designed 
wooden tablet, the work of Nixon, was placed at the en- 
trance to the position, reading: 



CONSTRUCTED 

BY 

BATTERY E, 149th F. A. 

IN ACTION 

A. D. 1918 



The gun pits were rushed to completion in the last days 
of April, so that they might be occupied by the guns of 
Battery D in an attack that came May 3. In the preceding 
days the French had moved up heavy artillery in support, 
and several batteries of 75's, of the same 232d French regi- 
ment which had been our neighbors in the Luneville sector, 
occupied the meadows to the left of our new position. 

Our firing had been only occasional and limited to brief 
reprisals up to this time. The first platoon, at 163, had suf- 
fered most in reply, receiving over 400 shells one day. Now 
a heavy bombardment was planned, to push back the enemy 
lines a short way and safeguard our own occupation of "No 
Man's Land." On May 2, some of the batteries kept pound- 
ing away all day, cutting barbed wire entanglements and 
clearing away obstacles in the infantry's advance. 

The following morning we were aroused at 3, and stood 
by the guns. At 3 :50 we added our fire to the din around 



US, sending over a barrage in front of the troops going over 
the top. It lasted only two hours, and expended about 175 
rounds per gun. So thorough and heavy had been the 
preliminary bombardment that the enemy had been forced 
to withdraw all his troops from the shelled area, and the 
infantry met with next to no resistance in reaching the ob- 
jective set for them. 

May 13 the officers and sergeants went to Azerailles to 
inspect Battery B equipped and packed in the manner of 
a battery on the road prepared for open field warfare. 
Rumors had been plentiful for weeks (1) that the 42d 
Division was going home to become instructors of the mil- 
lions of drafted men in the great camps in the United States, 
(2) that the 42d Division was going to the Somme to aid 
in checking the rapid drive of the enemy in the north, (3) 
that the division was to go to a rest camp in the south of 
France, (4) that the regiment was to turn in its horses and 
be motorized, etc., etc. The review at Azerailles strength- 
ened some of these rumors and stirred up still others. But, 
for the present, all these reports came to naught. 

May 21 the battery moved four kilometres back to a 
reserve position just in front of Merviller, which had for- 
merly been occupied by Battery B. The latter moved up 
to relieve us. After the seven weeks of close confinement 
in damp abris, the change to the life at the Merviller posi- 
tion was like a trip to a summer resort. Being so far back 
of the lines, the men were permitted to move about with 
perfect freedom. The stream just back of the position 
invited cool swims on the hot dusty afternoons. Ball games 
passed the time of waiting for mess. Battery E won a close 
game and keg of Baccarat beer from Headquarters Com- 
pany by the score of 12 to 11. Just across the road was 
stationed a bathhouse and laundry unit, and before long 
the battery had replaced their uniforms, torn and dirty from 
digging, with more presentable ones. 

Merviller's cafes and "epiceries" furnished food to make 
up for the lean weeks at Montigny. Being only a few min- 
utes' walk from the position, the town was a frequent even- 
ing's resort. Baccarat, about eight kilometres farther, was 
visited when Sunday passes permitted. This city was not 
so large as Luneville and held by no means the same attrac- 
tions as that early favorite of the 149th men. But the shops. 



38 



cafes, large hospitals, the celebrated Baccarat Glass Works, 
and the fact that it was a city drew the men there often. 
Across the Meurthe River, between the cathedral and the 
heights at the western edge of town lay the ruins of a large 
section of the city, shelled in those days of August, 1914, 
that marked the limits of the Germans' first onrush. 

Work had been dropped, after a couple of days, on the 
position begun by Battery B some distance in front of the 
one we occupied. Gun drill and instruction in various 
phases of the battery's work was the sole occupation of the 
men. Only once did the battery fire. At 1 :30 a. m., June 5, 
the gun crews were hurriedly aroused, and fired for about 
an hour, in response to a heavy enemy barrage, to which all 
guns in the sector replied. 

Gas alarms woke the battery many times at night, but 
by this time the men had reached that stage where their own 
judgment told them when they should sit up with their gas 
masks, and when they might turn over and go to sleep. In 
brief, the alarms, though frequent, bothered them little. 

June 9 the first two sections took two Battery D guns 
up in front of our forward positions, to demonstrate for the 
officers of the regiment the methods of open field warfare. 
All of the men learned to put up the "flat-tops" that were 
always, after we left Lorraine, used as camouflage over the 
guns. From four corner poles, held firmly by ropes and 
stakes, heavy ropes were stretched as taut as possible. On 
this framework was spread a cord netting, about thirty feet 
square, whose corners slanted out equidistant from the cor- 
ner poles. On the netting were fastened wisps of green 
burlap thick enough to conceal what lay beneath it, but not 
so thick as to cast a heavy shadow which might be dis- 
tinguished in an aerial photograph. This form of camou- 
flage could be set up and taken down quickly, and used 
repeatedly. 

During the latter part of our stay near Merviller, the 
peculiar sickness called "trench fever" ran through the regi- 
ment, thinning the ranks of the men fit for active duty and 
sending many to the hospital for a few days. After a few 
days of fever, languidness and weakness, the illness passed 
away. 

June 19 the first platoon pulled out, and the second 

39 



platoon followed on the next night, hiking Z7 kilometres to 
Damas-aux-Bois. After two days there, the regiment 
marched to Charmes, where we entrained for a short train 
ride to Chalons-sur-Marne. By noon next day the battery 
was in comfortable billets in Chepy, which, to us, is the 
cleanest village in France, for no manure piles decorate its 
main street and no dirty gutters line its roads. 

Swimming in the canal near by, French "movies" at the 
Foyer du Soldat, plenty of food — vegetables were abundant, 
and so were cheese, butter and milk till the hungry soldiers 
bought out the creamery completely — made this a delightful 
place, in spite of the boredom of "trigger squeeze exercise" 
and overlong "stables" in the heat of the day. 

On the night of June 28 the regiment marched up 
through Chalons to Camp de la Carriere, a large concentra- 
tion camp in the midst of woods, away from any towns, the 
nearest of which was the little village of Cuperly. We were 
in the great area known as the Camp de Chalons, where 
MacMahon had mobilized his army of 50,000 men in 1870, 
which ended so unhappily at Sedan. 

Sunday, June 30, one year since the regiment had been 
called out, there was a rigid inspection in the morning, and 
in the afternoon Colonel Reilly and Major Redden spoke 
on the work of the regiment in that time, and announced 
that the 42d was now to go into a new sector as a com.bat 
division. 



40 



CHAPTER ly 
Under Gouraud in Champagne 

The 149th had no fireworks on July 4, 1918. Even the 
games arranged for the afternoon to celebrate the holiday 
were neglected. There was good reason : one of the big- 
gest batches of mail our battery had ever received. A letter 
from home was worth many skyrockets or three-legged 
races to us. But that evening we saw a bigger variety of 
pyrotechnic displays than we had ever witnessed before, 
even at "Paine's Burning of Rome" or some other such 
spectacle. 

After supper we were given the order to pack, and at 
10:30 pulled out on the road. Our way was north, through 
a broad and barren country, marked in the darkness only 
by chalky white roads and trenches. Overhead were planes 
whirring and buzzing, invisible, but very audible, in the 
dark night. Here and there one dropped a sparkling signal 
light. At our backs were big fingers of whiteness thrust 
up into the sky ; they were the searchlights in front of Cha- 
lons, seeking for enemy planes to reveal to the anti-aircraft 
guns defending the city from bombers. Ahead, and far to 
the right and left, the front lines disclosed their presence 
by light rockets or "star-shells" that continually shot up 
into the sky and perhaps hovered there for long minutes. 
We were used to rockets in Lorraine, but never had we seen 
so many and such a variety as confronted us now. H^ere 
was visible evidence that we were engaged in something 
big. 

At 3 :30 a. m., we unlimbered our guns and pointed them 
across a deep chalk trench in front of us. The am-muni- 
tion from the caissons was piled beside them. As day broke 
we pitched the flat-tops. ^ The first platoon was located 
about 200 meters to the right of the second platoon. An 
equal distance on either side were located platoons of D 
and F batteries. Thus were the regiment's guns lined along 

41 



the trench for a distance of two kilometres. To the right 
flowed the Suippes river, on which was situated the nearest 
town, Jonchery-sur-Suippes. Several kilometres in front, 
the church steeple of St. Hilary-le-Grand served as a point 
for calculating the guns' fire. 

The regiment was in a reserve position, just back of a 
gently sloping crest, on the forward side of which were the 
strongly fortified entrenchments of the front lines. One 
of our earliest fires practiced in gun drill was "firing at 
will" at imaginary German tanks appearing over this crest. 
At that time such a possibility was not without its thrills, 
for the four previous German oft'ensives, on the northern 
part of the line, had been strikingly successful that spring, 
and the one which we were to help stop was known to ex- 
ceed in magnitude any previous attempt. General Gou- 
raud's exhortation to the French Fourth Army, to which 
our division was attached, was to "Stand or die!" This 
his men were ready to do, but how successfully they would 
withstand the repeated rushes of the German hordes, whose 
numbers had proved superior in the north, no one could be 
sure. Two reserve positions were picked, to which the 
battery might fall back in case the enemy broke through, 
and Lieutenant Anderson, Sergeant O'Meara and Sergeant 
Suter spent three days exploring by-roads and paths through 
the barbed wire for short cuts to be used in case it became 
necessary to fall back. Fortunately, "falling back" was 
something the 42d Division never had to do. 

Our first work was to dig a gun-pit beneath our flat-top, 
with a short shelter trench for the gun crew on each side. 
The pit was dug nearly three feet deep, and the soil piled 
high in sand-bags on the sides, for additional protection. 
The gravel and lime, into which our picks and shovels went, 
seemed as hard as mortar. Under the hot July sun, the 
men shed all the garments they could, and still the per- 
spiration poured down their bodies. 

Ammunition came up at night, and three thousand rounds 
per gun was stacked in the trench in front, and camou- 
flaged, ready at hand when the attack should come. 

For meals the cannoneers walked, in reliefs, to an ex- 
panse of low brush, just over a rise a few hundred yards 
behind us. At a distance this was an innocent looking spot. 
But when one followed a path into it, he discovered on 

42 



every hand pup-tents full of infantrymen, battery and com- 
pany kitchens cooking meals, and wagons and teams hidden 
by the foliage. Here was our kitchen, with Tubach and 
Harris in action, and the branch battery office where "Rain- 
bow" Gibbs officiated, under a tarpaulin beside the chariot 
du pare. Jerry Rosse, on his ration cart, brought up fresh 
beef, which Tubach made into delicious roasts and nourish- 
ing steaks, as well as an abundance of supplies wdiich en- 
abled us to eat better than we had dreamed a battery could 
eat in the field. 

Daytimes one would scarcely imagine a war was on. Not 
a gun could be heard. Over the crest in front we could see 
the black ovals of the enemy's observation balloons. Occa- 
sionally an aeroplane's whir made us scurry to cover, while 
a machine gun took a few shots at it, if it was an enemy 
craft. But otherwise scarcely a sign of activity could be 
seen on the whole landscape. 

At night it was far different. The heavy booming of 
big guns in our rear, the scream and whistle of shells 
through the air overhead, the thunder of the enemy's can- 
non, lasted from 10 o'clock to 3 or 4 in the morning. The 
rattle of wagons, carts and caissons in the darkness betok- 
ened a continuous procession along the roads up to the 
front lines the whole night long. Red flares illumined the 
sky, and light rockets hovered above the crest like a string 
of arc lamps. The gun crews stood guard, a man at each 
gun, in two-hour watches through the night. 

The men of the gun crews slept in pup tents beneath the 
flat-tops. The other men — machine gunners and B. C. de- 
tail — carved bunks out of the sides of the trench that ran 
along in front of the pieces. These bunks they covered 
with their shelter-halves, whose brown was whitened, to 
blend with the chalky soil they covered. Some shelter- 
halves bore chalked signs, such as the "Windy Alley Hotel," 
the abode of Berney and Pond, with the injunction, "Bom- 
bers Aim at This !" Under the caption, "Familiar Say- 
ings," was chalked up : "Tonight's the Night !" "What's 
for Mess?" "Is there any Mail?" etc. 

Captain Robbins spent his time at the battalion observa- 
tion post. The first platoon was commanded by Lieutenant 
Waters and the second by Lieutenant Adams. When the 
latter left, July 13, to act as instructor at an artillery school, 
many were the regrets expressed, not only by the men of 

43 



the second platoon, but also by those of the first platoon, 
Vi^ho had spent the months at 163, in Lorraine, tincler him. 
Lieutenant Cronin came up from the horse-lines to take his 
place. 

About five kilometres back, the horse-lines were located 
in a wood of evergreens, where the caissons and picket lines 
were camouflaged under trees. During the hot, sunny days 
before the attack, the men lay in the shade and "read their 
shirts." After July 14, they were so constantly on the 
road for ammunition that the horse-lines were deserted. 

Sunday, July 14, was "Bastille Day," the French Fourth 
of July. If the rumor was true that the French army is- 
sued a bottle of champagne to each three soldiers in way 
of celebration, it afifected the American troops with it not 
the least. For the day was as dry and hot as those pre- 
ceding, and the only variation in drink from the coffee at 
m.ess was the water of the Suippes river, where some men 
went to bathe and swim and wash clothes. If the German 
high command believed the rumor, and thought by begin- 
ning their offensive that night they would catch the French 
incapacitated from their holiday spree, they found they 
were sadly mistaken. 

At any rate they commenced their greatest and last 
offensive against the Allies that night, a night the 149th 
can never forget. Shortly before midnight the order came 
to make up our rolls and packs, so that if events required, 
we could move out quickly. The information came over 
the wire that two prisoners captured about nine o'clock had 
revealed the entire plans of the attack to the minute. At 
midnight the preliminary bombardment was to commence, 
which was to last four hours. At 4:15 a. m., the enemy's 
infantry was to start over the top. And so it occurred. 

At twelve o'clock broke loose a thunderous roar, which 
sounded like a gigantic hailstorm, so many and so rapid 
were the cannons' reports. Over five thousand cannon, it 
is estimated, were in action. Our orders were to stand by 
the guns ready to fire the instant command came. So we 
stood listening to the tremendous cannonading, the whistle 
and screech of shells overhead from the long-range guns 
behind us, and watched the red glow of cannon's belch and 
shells' burst. Now and then a great red glare filled the 
sky, when some ammunition dump was set afire. Off to 

44 



tlie right appeared a lurid eruption of rockets and signal 
lights of all kinds, the varied pyrotechnics lasting for ten 
or fifteen minutes; the infantry's stores of rockets had been 
hit. Along the crest ahead, where ran the road on which 
we heard so much traffic at night, shells from the enemy's 
heavy guns were dropping. In addition to the heavy bom- 
bardment of the front lines, there was constant fire on all 
trenches, roads and other ways of communication. 

At 4 a. m., the blackness was lightening to grey. The 
guns were laid, ready to drop a barrier of bursting shells 
when the enemy's first wave neared our front line. The 
'phone rang. There was checking of data and minute 
directions. At 4:15 came the command, "Fire," and the 
guns along the trench began to blaze and bang unceasingly. 
The men worked like demons, deaf now to all the thunder 
and roar about them, no eye to the crimson glare that lit 
up the horizon in front beneath the black piles of smoke 
like thunder clouds over the front lines, unconscious of the 
occasional shrapnel that fell near or the fragments from 
the big shells that burst along the crest and sometimes over 
towards them. Hour after hour they fed the guns at the 
same rate of speed. They could see no signs of the enemy 
themselves, none but the shells from his guns. But they 
knew that on the other side of the crest their fire was thin- 
ning the successive grey waves of Germans that hurled 
themselves on our infantry. The strength, the lives of our 
infantry depended on these 75's, and we could not fail them 
for a second. Fatigue, hunger, thirst were unminded. 
Cofifee was brought to the gun crews at noon. The first 
food was some beans and hardtack at midnight, more than 
thirty hours after mess of the evening before. 

At 11 a. m. came a lull. The enemy's first mighty eflfort 
was broken. General Gouraud's plan had succeeded. By 
drawing back all his forces from the front lines to the 
intermediate defences, he had caused the bombardment of 
hundreds of the enemy's guns to fall harmlessly, and ex- 
posed the German infantry waves to the more deadly fire 
of our cannon and machine-guns while they crossed the 
vacated trenches. In addition to the three German divi- 
sions holding the sector opposite the 21st French Corps — 
comprising three French divisions and the 42d Division — 
six first-class divisions of the enemy were hurled against 

45 



our lines. Yet, says the division's official Summary of 
Events of July 15, 1918, "In spite of the most vigorous 
attempt of the enemy, he was able to set foot on the inter- 
mediate position only at one point. A counter-attack by 
two companies of French infantry and two companies of 
the 167th Infantry drove him from this position in a bloody 
hand-to-hand combat." Five successive attacks that morn- 
ing were one after another thrown back with heavy losses. 

Not only in our immediate front, but all the way along 
the line from Chateau Thierry to the Argonne, the Allied 
line had held. The program by which the enemy expected 
to reach Suippes at noon July 15, and Chalons at 4 p. m. 
July 16, was irretrievably defeated. The Second Battle of 
the Marne, involving greater numbers of men than any 
previous battle in history, and more cannon than were en- 
gaged in our entire Civil War, was a decisive triumph for 
the Allies and a fatal crisis for the enemy. 

Late in the afternoon, the enemy undertook a second 
great effort, and our firing, which had slowed down during 
the afternoon, recommended at its rapid rate. Again there 
was a lull, and again the attack recommenced. All night 
long we fired, but since the rate was slower, three men 
could handle the work. Half the crew slept half the night, 
and then relieved the others. So tired they were that the 
frequent report of the gun ten feet away disturbed their 
slumbers not the slightest. 

Next day the firing continued, but slowly, as during the 
night. During the 15th the battery fired nearly one thou- 
sand rounds per gun. On the 16th about half that number 
of rounds were fired. 

The reserve ammunition stored in the trench had been 
expended, and the caissons were bringing up more. This 
necessitated hard, long and dangerous trips by the drivers. 
On the night before the attack they had packed up, har- 
nessed and hitched, and stood till morning waiting for pos- 
sible orders to pull out the guns. In the four big oft'ensives 
before this one. in 1918, the Germans had swept through 
the lines the first day; so preparations had been made for 
any contingencies. In the morning, caissons were sent out 
for more ammunition. One dump was blown up while 
they were alongside. This and other difficulties compelled 
them to search about the countryside for available stores 

46 



of shells. It was midnight before they brought them up, 
along shelled roads, to the position. Those who had not 
gone out in the first hitches, were out next day on another 
search. When they were on their way to the battery posi- 
tion, a great rainstorm burst. A high wind swept from 
the woods where the enemy had been dropping gas shells 
during the day. Alarms came so frequently that the order 
was given to put on masks. To follow a road in utter 
darkness amid beating rain with gas masks on was next 
to impossible. And that the caissons reached the position 
without accident seemed a miracle, for which the drivers 
can not be given too much credit. The gas alerte passed. 
But the rain was still pouring down so heavily and the sky 
was so black that the caissons had to be unloaded by light- 
ning flashes. A few stray steps might pitch one headlong 
in the deep trench. With this intermittent illumination, 
unloading four caissons was a slow job. When it had been 
finished, everyone was, in spite of slickers and gas suits, 
so drenched that water could be wrung out of every gar- 
ment. The storm passed across the front lines towards 
the enemy. As it cleared on our side, the silence, inter- 
rupted only by peals of thunder before, was broken by a 
heavy cannonading from the Allies' guns. 

A hot sun next day dried out clothes and blankets. The 
quiet of the days before the battle returned. Exciting aero- 
plane battles, or an occasional balloon sent down in flames, 
were all the evidence of warfare. Captain Robbins read 
the communiques of the preceding days, and told of the 
mighty repulse the enemy had suffered. 

A projectile with an I. A. L. fuse, the most delicate of 
those we used, had stuck in the bore of the Third Section 
piece on the evening of the 17th. Since all efforts of the 
battery mechanics were unavailing, the piece was taken to 
the divisional repair shop at about dawn on the 19th and 
another gun sent from the shop to replace it. 

Though there were losses in other batteries of the regi- 
ment. Battery E went through the engagement without a 
casualty. The death of Lieutenant Cowan, who had en- 
listed in the battery as a private, gone with it to the Mex- 
ican border, and been commissioned an officer of it before 
leaving Fort Sheridan, in August, 1917, came as a heavy 
blow to the men of Battery E because he was so generally 

47 



and thoroughly well liked by them. His transfer to Head- 
quarters Company had merely removed him from their eyes 
but not their hearts. As liaison officer, he was in the for- 
ward trenches during the engagement, and there a shell 
fragment struck him on the afternoon of July 16. The 
weird beauty of his funeral the following evening left a 
deep impression on the men who were at the regimental 
horse-lines at the time. After a drizzling rain early in the 
evening, the sky cleared, and the moonlight sifted down 
through the trees, glittering on the wet leaves, as the pro- 
cession marched slowly through the woods to the band's 
solemn music of Chopin's "Funeral March". The call of 
"Taps" through the dead of night, the final rifle volleys, 
brought the keener anguish at the thought that our first 
loss at the enemy's hands had been a comrade with whom 
we would have parted last. 

On Friday, July 19, came orders to move. All ammuni- 
tion was carried into the trench and camouflaged. When 
darkness came the flat-tops were taken down, and every- 
thing packed. The limbers were up early, and at 10 o'clock 
the battery pulled out. Our way was through Dompierre 
and into a woods, where we camped during the next day. 
Next night, leaving at 9:45. the regiment made a wide 
detour around Chalons, which was receiving heavy bomb- 
ing by dark, and arrived at Vitry-la-\''ille about 7 :30 a. m. 
That night we entrained, bound for the west, where the 
Allies were pushing back the Chateau Thierry salient. Our 
destination was not far by direct route, but the presence of 
the enemy in the valley of the Marne about Dormans cut 
us ofif. So we traveled in a circuitous course, southward 
to Brevonne. then westerly through Troyes, Rimiilly-sur- 
Seine, Longueville and Gretz, to the environs of Pan's, and 
east again down the valley of the Marne, through Meaux. 
to La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, where we detrained at midnight, 
July 22. 



48 





k^^-' 



Lieutenant Kellv" Kiiiiis 



Hume Life in a Dui;-()ut 



■^ -^^ 





III 



Kn Rciiite to llie O. I' 



l.ieiitenant Ailains at the O. 1'. 



CHAPTER V 
Clearing the Chateau Thierry Salient 

At our encampment near Montreuil-aux-Bois, whither 
we hiked from La Ferte-sous-Jouarre on the morning of 
July 23, we found traces of the horse-hnes of the artillery 
of the 26th Division, in the shape of trampled picket lines, 
bunks of woven branches, and abandoned equipment of all 
kinds. Stories of heavy losses, of nights and days with- 
out sleep or rest, as the New England batteries tried to 
catch up with their infantry in the wake of the rapidly 
retreating Germans, of extraordinary advances by the 
American forces, of hardships and lack of supplies due to 
the inability of supply trains to catch up with the rapid 
progress of the forward troops, met us on every hand. 
They might have been, as we recall them now, prophecies 
of what we, too, were to undergo in this sector. 

We had only a day's respite. On the 24th, a large num- 
ber of the battery were allowed leave to visit La Ferte. 
The civilians had not long returned to the city, from which 
they had fled when the enemy had advanced beyond Cha- 
teau Thierry, and shops were only beginning to be re- 
stocked. Fruits and vegetables were plentiful but at high 
prices. Meat was altogether lacking, and eggs were few. 
No restaurants were open at all, and few cafes. To secure 
a meal, one had to first buy the food, and then seek a house- 
wife who would cook and serve it. 

Next m_orning came a sudden order to move, and, three- 
quarters of an hour after its receipt, the battery was on 
the road at 9 :30 a. m. The way led through places whose 
names were already known to our ears for the splendid 
fighting American troops had done there — Coulombes, 
Bouresches and Belleau woods. In the golden fields of 
wheat were big splotches where shells had torn up the black 
earth ; trampled spaces often held a mound marked by a 
rifle stuck bayonet first into the ground — time was only 
enough to bury the dead, not yet suf^cient to put wooden 

49 



crosses over them. Along the roads was equipmen*^ and 
material of all kinds, abandoned by the Germans in their 
hurried retreat, or cast aside by the Americans pushing on 
in pursuit. 

At night the battalion camped in the woods above 
Epieds. Early next morning the carriages were oushed 
under the shelter of the trees to hide the signs of troops 
from enemy aeroplanes scouting overhead. So close to the 
lines were we now that no movement could be made in the 
open by day. At 9 p. m., the guns moved out to go for- 
ward into position, leaving the wagon train here. The bat- 
tery had not gone far when a heavy rain began to fall. 
The road, through the dense woods of the Foret de Fere, 
was narrow, muddy, and full of ruts. "Cannoneers to the 
wheels," was the constant cry. Splashing through water 
and mud to their knees, the dismounted men tugged at 
wheels sunk far down in the deep ruts and holes. "Horse 
down!" came the cry from a Fifth Section caisson. The 
animal was on its back over the edge of the road, so that 
it could not regain a footing on the road, and if it rolled 
the other .way the horse would be lost in the ravine below. 
With prolongs around its body, the men pulled the horse 
almost back on the road where it could get a footing, after 
three-quarters of an hour of hard effort directed by Cap- 
tain Robbins. Then a caisson, catching up to the cohtmn, 
went over the horse's hoof, and the animal had to be shot. 

By this time the rain had ceased. In the silence that 
succeeded the sound of the falling drops, could be heard 
the venomous pop and spit of gas shells bursting in the 
woods. Rifle shots rang out occasionally. Uneasy in the 
midst of unknown danger, the men greeted the sudden order 
to turn back with surprise. But they made haste to execute 
it. Most of the battery had debouched from the narrow 
road into an open grassy space. The last three caissons, 
however, were unlimbered and turned around. Tveter gave 
an exhibition of skillful driving that brought cheers from 
the men, turning the big chariot du pare with its three-horse 
hitch without assistance or accident. The other carriages 
returned through this stretch of woods by another road, 
little, if any, better than the one by which they came. The 
drivers lashed their horses to a gallop and took the guns 
and caissons through with scarcely a stop, giving them no 

50 



time to sink in ruts or holes. The wooden boxes roped on 
top the caissons swayed and tossed, spilHng gas equipment 
and liaison instruments, to be picked up by the dismounted 
men following, who cheered on the drivers to greater speed. 

Not until long after was the explanation of the sudden 
countermarch revealed. When the orders were given to 
move up our artillery, it was with the belief that the in- 
fantry would make a certain objective that day. The stiff 
resistance in these woods delayed the infantry advance, 
however, and the doughboys were still occupied in clearing 
these of the enemy when our battalion pulled through them. 
The courier sent to apprise Major Redden of the circum- 
stances and consequent change of orders caught up with us 
when we were, therefore, beyond our own lines and up 
wath our advance infantry. This was the first time the 
battalion was in so unusual a place for artillery. Just a 
week later, we occupied a position ahead of the infantry 
over night. But so fast was the enemy retreating that any 
thrills over our exposed condition lay in imagination rather 
than actual circumstances. 

By the next night the woods had been cleared, and we 
went forward again. The long steady climb up hill through 
the Bois de la Tournelle made hard pulling. The halts to 
rest the horses were frequent, and, near the top, teams from 
one carriage had to be added to another hitch and then the 
assistance returned in order to get up the steep grade. Our 
division was on the extreme left of the American forces, 
and we were constantly alongside the French troops wdio 
adjoined us on our left. How strenuous had been the fight- 
ing was evidenced by the bodies of dead still lying where 
they had fallen the afternoon before. Haggard French- 
men were just then beginning to seek their missing com- 
rades. 

The battalion took position in an open field in front of 
the woods, at the top of the hill, under flat-tops. The 
horse-lines were at the edge of the woods behind. On our 
left was a small woods, at the edge of which were several 
French batteries of 75's. They pitched no fllat-tops, but 
camouflaged their guns with green boughs, staying in the 
woods, where were their shelters and kitchen, except when 
actvial work on the guns required their presence. Our tele- 
phone men, mechanics and Captain Robbins also had their 

51 



quarters in these woods. Elaborate abris, benches and 
tables woven of boughs about a cleared "Appelplatz," and 
rifles, overcoats and other equipment spoke of the occupa- 
tion of the same woods by the Germans not long before. 
Every section of the battery had one or two German rifles 
and a stock of "boche" ammunition beneath its flat-top, 
with which ambitious marksmen sought to emulate the ex- 
ample of the automatic riflemen of the Alabama and New 
York regiments, who had each brought down an aeroplane 
at Champagne. 

This position is called by the men the "tower position," 
from the high observation platform built of wooden scaf- 
folding by the Germans half-way between the position and 
the edge of the woods. Being in the open field our bat- 
teries escaped the fire of the enemy, which was directed 
several times on the French batteries at the edge of the 
woods and in the depths of the woods also. Sometimes 
the bursts and fragments came dangerously close to the 
gun-pits, but they were not many enough to seem directed 
at our position. 

Berney came close to providing the battery with fresh 
beef while it was here. But "close" was all! A lone cow 
was seen wandering in a field near by. A volunteer raid- 
ing party composed of Corporal Pond, of the engineers, 
and Acting-Corporal Berney of the machine-gunners, set 
out in pursuit. They had no difficulty in surrounding and 
capturing the cow, which continued to graze placidly when 
they forcibly seized the rope that hung from its neck. Then 
the members of the foraging party remembered they had 
no authority from their officer in command to conduct such 
operations. So half the. detail, namely Corporal Pond, 
returned to outline the situation and report the success of 
their movement to Lieutenant Waters. Not averse to 
acquiring fresh beef free himself, he granted the necessary 
authority. But in the meantime, a new force had appeared 
on the scene demanding possession of the cow, to judge 
from his gesticulations, for his torrent of words were mean- 
ingless to the two foragers. This was a young French 
soldier, breathless from a run across the fields, cap askew 
and hair disheveled. So Pond went back to the position 
again, this time for some one to act as interpreter. Through 
this medium the volunteer raiding party learned that the 
cow was the property of the major commanding the neigh- 

52 



boring French batteries, that the cow's guardian had fallen 
asleep and the cow had wandered off, and that the major 
would do dire things to the poilu if he did not recover the 
cow before the major learned of his loss. So the battery 
got no fresh beef, but ate "goldfish" instead. 

Two days later the machine gunners achieved real dis- 
tinction, when Donahue and Bowly brought a German aero- 
plane to earth a few hundred feet from the position. The 
plane was riddled with bullets and both pilot and observer 
were badly wounded. In descending the plane crashed into 
a tree at the edge of the woods, wrecking the machine. 
This first actual contact with the enemy and visual token 
of damage done him was not without its thrills. Needless 
to say, "beaucoup souvenirs" were secured. 

During the day of July 29, the battery fired on machine 
gun nests that obstructed the infantry's advance. Next 
afternoon it gave heavy response to a German barrage, and 
continued with a concentration fire all evening. Both nights 
the battery was called on to fire at one o'clock for an hour 
or two. On the night of the 31st the men were at the guns 
almost till morning, firing intermittently all the while. 

This constant firing was accompanying our infantry in 
their advance. The names of Sergy, Seringes, Hill 212, 
Meurcy Farm and the River Ourcq represent terrible hours 
to the infantry of the Rainbow division — hours whose 
awfulness we realized when the battery moved forward at 
noon August 2. Skirting the town of Fere-en-Tardenois, 
which still drew occasional shots from the enemy's long- 
range guns, we crossed the small stream whose line had 
been so strongly defended by the Germans until our dough- 
boys had forced them from it. The Ourcq was not more 
than fifteen or twenty feet wide at the place where our 
guns and caissons forded it. But there was a steep incline 
on the far-side leading up to a high road. Taking this 
road into Fere-en-Tardenois, we turned at a sharp angle 
at the outskirts and took the road to Seringes. In the 
shelled fields along which we passed, litter-carriers were 
still at work bringing back wounded. Some boys came 
limping back alone, or supported by others with an arm in 
a sling or bandaged about the head. Conversation with 
one of these turned always to the question of relief : When 
will relief be up? Have you heard of troops coming up 

53 



to relieve us? Some battalions of infantry were pushing 
on after having lost fifty per cent of their men. 

About 4 p. m. the batteries of the second battalion gained 
a crest to the right of the Foret de Nesles. 

"How far are our lines from here?" asked an officer in 
the lead, of a signal corps man on the road. 

"There's only a company and a half of infantry beyond 
here. I don't know how far ahead they are," was the 
reply. 

So the battalion turned back and took cover in woods 
behind the crest. Here supper — canned corn and stewed 
dried apricots — was served, and here were established the 
horse-lines, which only stayed a day. German equipment 
and dead lay strewn through the woods. 

After mess came the order to harness and hitch. The 
Second Battalion trotted into position for the first and only 
time in the regiment's history. The sight of the gvms and 
caissons dashing into action was stirring, and it sent up the 
spirits of the fatigued infantrymen to a pitch that enabled 
them to carry on when already exhausted. In the morning 
we learned that during the darkness the company and a 
half of infantrymen, who had been scouting to gain contact 
with the enemy, had withdrawn, leaving us the nearest unit 
to the enemy. But the enemy were retreating so rapidly 
that they were beyond our range again by afternoon. The 
road forward was swarming with supply trains. artiller>', 
machine gun carts, and infantry that passed, company after 
company, their packs on their backs, pushing ahead to keep 
the enemy on the move, giving him no rest in which to 
organize and entrench himself. 

On the evening of August 3 came the order to move 
forward again, compelling us to abandon our mess to pack 
up. Our route, through Chery-Chartreuse, was so con- 
gested that progress was slow. Supply trains were doing 
their utmost to execute their mission, difficult because the 
line was pushing forward so rapidly, and leaving railroad 
heads so far behind. At one point it was necessary to halt 
for several hours because the road ahead was being con- 
stantly shelled, making passage impossible. It was day- 
break when we pulled up a long steep hill, passing through 
muddy fields to avoid danger on the shelled roads. The 
horses, already worn out by continued labor, little food and 

54 



scarcity of water, could hardly make the ascent even with 
cannoneers pushing, shouting and urging them on by every 
means possible. 

Our position here was on the forward slope of a bowl- 
shaped valley. At the bottom, in the shelter of a line of 
bushes, were the guns of the First Battalion. To our left 
were woods, in which the horses and limbers took cover. 
At the right was a large farm house that housed the B. C. 
detail and some other men. Far down, in the depths of 
the basin were two roads that drew much fire. In front 
along the crest ran another, also a frequent target. Ar- 
tillery, infantry and supplies were coming up all the time 
in preparation for an attack to push across the Vesle river. 

The men had traveled all night in the rain and cold. 
But before there could be any rest, trail pits must be dug, 
in order that we might be able to fire if called upon at any 
time to do so. With increasing experience of hunger and 
consequently keener eye to the emergencies ahead, the men 
had levied upon a pile of rations lying where they had been 
abandoned by some cart whose load was too great to make 
progress along the miry road. They had, therefore, for 
breakfast — ere the battery kitchen had time to get its fire 
going — some of that canned commodity labelled by the 
packers "canned roast beef" but more generally termed, by 
the consumers, "monkey meat." Canned sweet potatoes 
heated in a mess-kit over a can of solidified alcohol was an 
excellent dish, the more appreciated because they had never 
been issued to the battery. The infantry were favored in 
this regard, it seems. The discovery that elderberries grew 
in the woods near by furnished dessert, for sugar was sup- 
plied from some one's store, acquired, no doubt, from some 
other abandoned rations. But the dessert was, for most, 
a mistake, as they realized when they began to feel sensa- 
tions like those of years before resulting from an overdose 
of green apples. 

When the digging was done, the cannoneers passed the 
afternoon in sleep. In the evening the battery fired. 
Heavy shelling on the road behind, after midnight, was 
accompanied by another call to the guns to fire again. The 
caissons, which had gone back after more ammunition after 
they had come up with the pieces, came up with their sec- 
ond load in the midst of darkness. The first two reached 

55 



the position without delay, but the others, halted by the 
constant shelHng on the road, had to wait till nearly day- 
break before it was safe to venture up. 

Rain fell next day. But the big tarpaulins belonging 
with the guns were stretched as a tent under the camou- 
flage, and gave comfort to the men so long as they were 
not called upon to fire. The bread that came with meals — 
carried in cans from the kitchen in the woods — was green 
with mould, from the long journey in inclement weather 
from the bakeries. The coffee tasted like quinine, since 
the water to be found was so bad that it had to be strongl}' 
chlorinated. But a big sack of mail came to the battery 
that day, and all troubles were forgotten in the joy of hear- 
ing from home. 

That day, August 5, Sergeant McElhone left the battery 
to go back to the United States as an instructor, an oppor- 
tunity that made him the envy of everyone while they con- 
gratulated him on his good luck. Corporal Monroe suc- 
ceeded to the charge of the Second Section, Herrod taking 
his place as gunner. 

All that night and the next day, the battery maintained 
a steady fire on the enemy, destroying machine gun nests, 
entrenchments and available shelter in preparations for an 
advance across the Vesle. From 4:30 till after 8 p. m. 
August 6, we dropped a slow barrage on the town of Ba- 
zouches, to the left of Fismes. 

At noon next day the Second Battalion went forward to 
a position almost overlooking the river. The movement 
was not without danger. For the bright day, with enemy 
aeroplanes overhead constantly, exposed the batteries to 
discovery, particularly when they galloped up an open hill- 
side into position. A blanket covering two still figures just 
beside our path, several others farther away without such 
cover, and white bandages gleaming on the bodies of some 
of the battalion of engineers who, with pontoon bridges, 
were waiting in readiness in the woods below, were evi- 
dence that the shells which whirred over and burst a ways 
beyond us were not always so far from their mark. The 
battery went up the hill one carriage at a time. Flat-tops 
were stretched at once, and in addition to the trail pit, each 
section dug a trench for shelter as well. Shells bursting on 
the crest ahead lent speed to the shovels and picks. 

Captain Robbins, using a tree-top as an O. P., directed 

56 



the adjustment of the pieces, firing only two rounds per 
gun in doing so. 

But that was all the battery fired from this position, 
although we stayed there the following two days. The 
division which had relieved our infantry could not keep up 
the pace the latter had set, which formed the basis of the 
plans by which we had moved up, ready to support the 
crossing of the Vesle. 

The roads behind us received constant fire from the 
enemy. Shrapnel bursts came near the position occasion- 
ally, and gas alarms were frequent. In the horse-lines just 
behind lit a shell on the afternoon of August 8 that caused 
the battery's first serious casualties. Parkhurst was in- 
stantly killed. Foster was struck in the breast by a large 
fragment, and died two days later. Lawrence Gibbs was 
wounded in the hand. He refused to go to the hospital at 
the time, and kept at his duties as clerk of the firing bat- 
tery, though later the wound, becoming worse, compelled 
him to go. For his bravery in going after medical aid and 
under heavy shell fire, refusing treatment himself until the 
others had been attended to. he was recommended for the 
Distinguished Service Cross by the regimental commander. 

This news of death in our own battery — the first en- 
listed men lost in action — caused a heavy sorrow and grief 
that could not be shaken oflF, among the men of the battery, 
whose friendship by this time had become very close. 

On the night of August 10, the battery moved back to 
a spot within a few hundred feet of that it had occupied 
before making the last advance. The caissons drivers made 
trip after trip to bring back all the ammunition, under fre- 
quent shell fire on the road. Horse after horse, weakened 
to exhaustion, dropped in harness, and had to be taken out 
of the hitch. 

Artillery of the Fourth Division were in position all 
about us, in the valley. In the woods were their horse- 
lines, too, from which they so openly brought their horses 
to water that they received ironic inquiries concerning their 
"horse fair." 

Shelling was frequent, and gas was always noticeable at 
night. Itching throats and watering eyes were too common 
for comfort. When the battery was in readiness to move out, 
the caissons having gone and the guns waiting for sundown 

57 



to follow, the enemy gave a parting salute, a little fuller of 
thrills than any before. In the trail pit was the only pro- 
tection. The buzz of jagged fragments through the air, 
the loud whang and eruption of sod and soil from a burst 
not far from Captain Robbins' tent, sent everyone to this 
slight shelter. Fortunately the farewell ended with no one 
injured. 

Next day, August 12, found the regiment in the Bois 
de Chatelet, where they examined the site of the ''Big 
Bertha" which had been there. Only a huge turntable ten 
yards in diameter, with a concrete base at least eight feet 
deep — one saw that far down a circular trench around it — 
was left, with the railway tracks along which the carriage 
ran. The ball-bearings of the turntable were the size of 
a man's head. _ 

That day Corporal Holton was appointed first sergeant, 
Corporal Collier succeeding him as gas N. C. O. Sergeant 
Landrus, who had been appointed "top-cutter" in O'Meara's 
place July 24, had gone to Saumur to officers' school. 

Two days later the regiment marched through Chateau 
Thierry, to which its citizens were just returning. French 
soldiers guarded German prisoners at work clearing out 
houses and cleaning the street. Before some doors stood 
wagons loaded with furniture. Other doors bearing the 
sign, "Habitee," indicated those houses' occupants were 
settled. The church's walls, torn by shell holes, bore wit- 
ness to the severe shelling the town had received. On the 
hillside beyond, lay the village of Vaux, now a heap of 
white bricks, where the Germans had advanced. Hiking 
both morning and afternoon, the battery reached a woods 
on the bank of the Marne, near the hamlet of Mery-sur- 
Marne, where we encamped. 

For three days the battery lay here, twenty men going 
to Paris on a 48-hour pass, the others visiting La Ferte- 
sous-Jouarre, more thriving now than when we had de- 
trained there three weeks before. But prices were very 
high : peaches and plums, 3 francs a pound ; melons, 4 and 
5 francs each; tomatoes, 15 sous a pound; potatoes 10 
sous a pound ; sugar, 20 sous a pound. Swimming in the 
Marne- was a favorite pastime until the drowning of a 
member of Battery F clouded our enjoyment of it. 

On August 18 the regiment hiked along the Paris high- 



way, alongside the Marne, to Trilport, where it entrained 
that evening. 

A box-car was a welcome haven of rest then. The 
weeks in this sector had passed like months. The constant 
moving up, the difficulty of getting adequate rations, the 
lack of good water, the shortage of sleep, and the continual 
and strenuous activity through it all, had worn out the men 
and killed many of our horses. But the division had done 
much in the time during which it had been in the line, and 
our fatigue seemed lightened by such statements as that of 
the divisional commander : "In eight days the 42d Divi- 
sion has forced the passage of the Ourcq, made an advance 
of 16 kilometres, and met, routed and decimated a Prus- 
sian Guard division, a Bavarian Reserve division and one 
other division." 



59 



CHAPTER VI 
In the St. Mihiel Offensive 

Our train journey took us south to the divisional area, 
about Langres. The regiment detrained at Bourmont, and 
from there the batteries hiked to different towns, E to 
Bourg Saint Marie. 

This is as close as the battery ever came to spending 
leisure at a "rest camp," of which we heard rumors at the 
front, and it promised to be quite the opposite of a rest, 
from the schedule laid out. No more than promised, how- 
ever, for the ten days spent there sufficed for only a day 
or two of the schedule, after the time required for settling 
down and before the days required to prepare for moving. 

The men who went to the "scabies" hospital, at Bour- 
mont, of whom there was a considerable number, were the 
ones who had the rest. Those who were members of the 
"Two Weeks' Club" enjoyed only what rest the corporals, 
honorary members because their sentence was three weeks, 
who were in charge of the details — which did various choice 
bits of excavation work — allowed them ; whether that was 
insufficient or excessive can only be determined by testi- 
mony. 

The dread schedule appeared only for one day, Monday, 
August 26. Reveille was at 4:30; breakfast, 5; watering 
and feeding horses; footdrill, 7:30-8:30; pistol drill, 8:30- 
9:15; standing gun drill, 9:30-10:30; stables, 10:30-11:30. 
In the afternoon two hours of pistol drill and standing gun 
drill were followed by stables, 4 to 5 p. m., filling the time 
as completely as in the morning. 

Next day reveille was at 5 :45, and the schedule was 
thus rid of its most disagreeable feature, early rising. 
Otherwise it was nearly as the preceding day. Wednesday, 
however, a regimental review, and the consequent washing 
of harness, and cleaning and greasing of carriages, upon 

60 



return, knocked out the schedule completely, and it had no 
time to regain its feet. Next day the caissons went after 
ammunition, and at night the regiment marched again on 
its way to the front. 

Before this departure, the battalion witnessed the pres- 
entation of colors donated by Corporal Beatty's father to 
Battery E. The summing up of the battery's work on this 
occasion, the formal statement of its standards and achieve- 
ments by Captain Robbins were indeed impressive. 

All traveling on our way to the St. Mihiel front was by 
night. Particular care was being taken that no troop move- 
ments should be revealed to the enemy To us this plan 
had its advantages because we hiked during the cool hours 
of night and rested when the day was hottest. The first 
day we passed in woods near St. Ouen des Pahey, the next 
under trees at the fork of two roads, and that evening made 
the two hours' hike to a large camp of wooden barracks at 
Rebeuville, just over the hill from Neufchateau. 

Here we stayed four days, visiting the city of Neuf- 
chateau, bathing in the river, and grooming and grazing the 
horses. Troupes of Y. M. C. A. entertainers played two 
afternoons, giving a performance of "Baby Mine" on th^' 
hillside behind the barracks. The last night of our stay, 
the whir of planes overhead caused the cry "Lights Out!" 
The explosion of several bombs gave proof of their being 
enemy planes. But fortunately the bombs damaged noth- 
ing but farm land on the other side of Neufchateau. 

Next night we took the road at 8 :30 and hiked till mid- 
night, passing near Domremy, the birthplace of Jeanne 
d'Arc. Our billets for the day were several hay mows, in 
the town of Brancourse. 

Starting out at 5 p. m. September 5, we made a record 
hike, going forty-seven kilometres before making camp 
after daylight. At the end of the journey, the carriages, 
having followed the wrong road, had to cross a narrow 
embankment, sloping dizzily to a deep valley below on each 
side. Misfortune struck the very first carriage. A wheel 
went over the edge, and gun, limber, horses and drivers 
rolled over and over down the slope. Kadon and Searles 
fell free and unhurt. Al Overstreet, being wheel driver, 
was brought down by the pole and pinned beneath a horse. 
His situation was precarious, but he was finally extricated, 

61 



suffering from the fall and a badly wrenched leg. The 
horse escaped unhurt. The chief damage was done to the 
wheels of the gun carriage, both of which were broken. 
These were replaced that day by two spare wheels from the 
battery wagon. After a day of frequent rain and little 
rest, the battery drove through Toul that night and camped 
next day in the Bois de la Reine, near Sanzey. Here we 
stayed for four days, moving up into position for the at- 
tack September 10. 

Amid spasmodic showers, the firing battery started for- 
ward at 5 :30 p. m. Brakes, mogul springs and trace chains 
had all been wrapped, to muffle their clatter. Our position, 
a short distance past Mandres, was within a thousand yards 
of the enemy's lines. The road from which we turned into 
an open field was being shelled, and the fire increased after 
we pulled into position, at about 10:30. Shell splinters cut 
ropes and a stake of the Third Section camouflage. A frag- 
ment struck Baker in the knee, making a bad wound. His 
leg was stiffening, but he was lifted to a limber seat, and 
rode there back to the aid station. 

The crowded roads on the way up, teeming with supply 
trains, batteries of artillery, machine-gim carts and caissons 
of ammunition, gave evidence of what thorough and power- 
ful preparations the American army had made for driving 
the enemy from the St. Mihiel salient. The roads them- 
selves, very vital to an advancing army, had been put in 
excellent condition, and guide posts and marks were on 
every hand to expedite and facilitate traffic. Infantry was 
billeted in the towns as close to the line as they could be 
kept concealed, and came up in long lines when night fell 
September 11. By that time each section had dug its trail 
pit and shelter trenches, improvised some sort of a platform 
for the gun wheels, and cleaned and greased all its am- 
munition. 

As darkness came on, rain began to fall. It became a 
heavy downpour later, and in a couple of hours the trail 
pits and trenches were a foot deep with water and mud. 
At 11 o'clock came the command through the dark, "Chiefs 
of sections, report!" Huddled at the entrance of the cap- 
tain's tent, the sergeants received the data for the firing 
that was to prepare for and accompany the attack to take 
place next morning. 

62 



At the same time the rattle and clank something like 
that of a steam roller told us of tanks coming up for the 
attack. We could see their clumsy silhouettes against the 
sky, as they crossed in front along the crest. The rain had 
ceased, and the sky was clearing. Long, dark lines re- 
solved themselves into files of infantry winding their way 
up and over the crest ahead, into the trenches beyond. 

At 1 a. m. began the preliminary fire, at the low rate 
of twenty rounds per gun an hour. This continued until 
5 o'clock, when a huge shower rocket signaled with a great 
burst of light the beginning of the advance. At this we 
increased the rate of fire, commencing the barrage that pre- 
ceded the infantry's line. The heavy rain had so softened 
the ground that it gave way beneath the improvised plat- 
forms on which the gun wheels rested. When the firing 
was slow, the planks could be straightened, the gun crews 
tugging to lift a wheel out of the mud. But the barrage 
could not be interrupted. Before long the planks were 
thrown aside altogether, and the wheels sank with the 
shock of each round until they were eight to ten inches in 
the mire when the order to cease firing came at 10 o'clock. 

By that time group after group of prisoners were pass- 
ing us on their way to the rear, in such numbers as to indi- 
cate our great success. Still more infantry filed past to the 
trenches. Reports of incredible progress and amazing 
figures of prisoners filtered to us. At noon we packed up, 
ready to go forward when the limbers should come up. 
But, though they had started at 7 o'clock that morning, 
they did not arrive till 8 in the evening. The roads were 
black with advancing troops and supply trains. The broad 
fields between us and Beaumont suddenly turned an O. D. 
hue when a battalion of infantry pitched their pup tents 
there for the night. 

At 11 p. m. our battery was on the road, after a hard 
pull to get out of the soggy field. We went only a kilometre 
or so to the left, toward Seicheprey, when we found the 
way impassable. After waiting an hour or more, the bat- 
talion turned around and headed in the opposite direction. 
Here, too, was blocked traffic and delay. At Flirey, in the 
early morning, the dismounted men were distributed along 
the road to assist the M. P.'s in clearing a way for us. 
There was, it appeared, but one road to advance into the 
territory ahead of us evacuated by the enemy. And it, as 

63 



we found later, had been shelled almost to extinction. Had 
it not been for corned beef sandwiches and cofifee from 
kitchens at the roadside near here, the boys would have 
gone hungry all day, although a good many levied success- 
fully on the ration dump in the town. 

Advance was at a snail's pace, and halts were frequent 
and long. Not far out of town, we gained the summit of a 
ridge that gave us a wide view of what had yesterday been 
the battlefield. It had been so plowed up by shells that 
trenches were obliterated, abris buried beyond sight save for 
some timber jutting up from the torn earth, and the woods 
and thickets swept as by fire. Recently captured Germans 
were gathering stones to fill shell holes in the road and make 
it passable for the long line of wagons, carts, ambulances, 
guns and caissons. 

By afternoon we had reached the town of Essey, where 
large vegetable gardens, stores and warehouses full of sup- 
plies, and furnished houses showed how comfortable the 
enemy had been in their four years there. Now that they 
were gone, a throng of black-clad refugees, old men and 
women, a few girls, and little children, crowded the market 
square, with carts piled high with bedding and household 
belongings. 

In the afternoon the battery went into position in front 
of LaMarche, the limbers and caissons going into woods 
a few hundred yards ahead. The horses, watered in a 
small stream, broke the dam that held it, and allowed the 
water to flow into the dry gulley below, in which the 
guns were placed. By morning the second platoon was 
flooded out, and had to move back a few yards to dry land. 
In the race between the two sections the Third Section 
won Lieutenant Leprohon's prize of a keg of beer, which, 
however, they were destined not to drink. There was com- 
pensation for the labor caused, however, in the presence of 
water for bathing and washing. Since we did no firing in 
two days we stayed here, this was of real advantage. 

The battery kitchen, in town, a few hundred yards away, 
put the Germans' vegetable garden to good use, cooking the 
carrots, cabbage and turnips in vessels which the Germans 
had abandoned — a practically complete kitchen equipment. 
Fresh vegetables were so rare that they were highly appreci- 
ated. The wounded cow — divided, according to Solomon's 
principle in the dispute of the two women over the babe, 

64 




Hit'liways Swarmed witli Troops Ailianciiik' to Clear the St. Miliiel Salient 




Tcrrai-eit X'ineyards about Deniaii. (.ermany, where tlie 149th Spent C'liristmas. IVIS 



IV 



in equal parts between E and F batteries — proved to be 
more venerable than we thought, and though boiled for 
many hours, provided only soup for our nourishment. 

By the afternoon of September 14 details came to us of 
the clearing of the entire St. Mihiel salient, freeing 150 
square miles and yielding 15,000 prisoners, as well as con- 
siderable prestige to the American army in its first inde- 
pendent effort. Occupying the center of the advance, the 
42nd Division had advanced nineteen kilometres in twenty- 
four hours. 

The following day came the order for us to advance. 
The move was a short one, only two kilometres ahead, but 
the road was uphill through mud up to the axles. The 
horses, succumbing already under the heavy labor and 
scanty food, required all the assistance t-he dismounted men 
could give them. Sometimes there was question whether 
the cannoneers were not pushing the horses as well as the 
caissons. Even such famous teams as Hardy's "Omar" and 
"Ambrose," Grund's "Bunny" and the mare, Hedgepath's 
"Dick" and "Fatima," and Young's "Red" and "Bud," 
were worked to their utmost to pull up carriage after car- 
riage through "Lepage Avenue," as the muddy way was 
named from its resemblance to the famous glue. 

The position was on the hill top in the midst of woods, 
the greater part of which had already been cut by the Ger- 
mans. A well equipped saw mill was not far away, and 
from its yards was obtained lumber for the gun pits and 
for shacks built for the officers and for the kitchen. Cor- 
rugated iron huts housed the B. C. detail and the extra 
cannoneers, who brought up supplies and ammunition on 
a narrow gauge railroad which ran from LaMarche up 
through the woods to St. Benoit station in front of them, 
where there was a full gauge track. When the Alabama 
doughboys first discovered the narrow gauge railroad, it 
furnished them high entertainment for a couple of nights. 
They coasted on flat cars down the hill to LaMarche. They 
ran the little engine on a wild journey through the woods, 
tooting the whistle and shouting loud enough to wake Fritz 
in his dugouts two or three miles away. Then the 117th 
Engineers took over the rolling stock and operated it for 
practical instead of amusement purposes. 

The gun crews finished their gun pits and dug abris, 
employing the lumber and corrugated iron left by the enemy, 

65 



before there was call to fire. Now that the salient was 
cleared, the chief work was the establishing of a firm de- 
fensive line. On the 19th the battery fired twenty rounds 
on an American aeroplane which had fallen within the 
enemy lines, in order to destroy it before the enemy carried 
it off. That day also the battery fired for adjustment. 

Rocket guard was established when the data was pro- 
vided for an indicator board. By sighting along an arrow 
on this board, the sentinel could tell from the location of the 
place where the red rocket rose whether it called for normal 
barrage, "green" barrage, or whatever other barrages might 
have been given us. 

The following morning, September 20, about 5 a. m., 
the call came over the telephone for normal barrage, no- 
rocket having been seen. No sooner was that fired than 
orders were given for green barrage. Later we learned 
that the enemy raiding party had gone around the first 
barrage but were caught by the second and none escaped 
back to his lines. 

Two days later, September 22, we crawled out of our 
tents at 3 a. m. to carry ICO rounds per gun from the piles 
along the road back of the position. From 4 to 5 :45 the 
battery fired a slow bombardment and then a barrage til! 
6:30, to accompany our infantry's highly successful raid 
of Marinbois Farm, strongly held by the enemy. About 
noon a few rounds were fired on an enemy working party. 

At 3 :30 a. m., September 23, at the cry, "Normal bar- 
rage," from Kulicek, then on watch at the rocket post, the 
guard in each gun pit woke the men sleeping in their pup- 
tents in the bushes behind. Hastily pulling on our shoes, we 
dashed out into a drizzling rain, and fired about 100 rounds 
per gun in the next two hours. A raiding party of Ameri- 
can troops and one of the enemy had accidentally stumbled 
on each other in the darkness. The following night there 
was heavy firing on both sides, and the battery was aroused 
twice, but fired little either time. Both sides, it seemed, 
were uneasy in anticipation of the great drive that began 
September 26. 

Though the actual drive on this date was northward, by 
troops west of Verdun, the preliminary cannonading 
stretched along the line facing eastward, south of Verdun, 
as well, thus concealing from the enemy the actual line of 

66 



attack until it was too late for him to concentrate his forces. 
Battery E, firing from 11:30 p. m. till 6:30 a. m., the 
morning of September 26, expended about 1,500 rounds in 
this ruse, our infantry having been withdrawn from the 
front lines, in anticipation of heavy counterbombardment. 

Perhaps the worst task on this night was that of the 
drivers on the caissons which carried the shells from the 
railroad track to the position. The haul was short, but 
the mud was deep and heavy. They made trip after trip, 
using every possible means of urging the horses to their 
task. But when the last load had been carried, about 3 a. m., 
the horses were so exhausted that they could not pull the 
empty caissons through the long stretch of gumbo on the 
way back to the horse lines. When the gun crews had 
ceased firing, therefore, the cannoneers went to the drivers' 
assistance. The latter lay, dead asleep, on top of the 
caissons, while the horses munched in the bushes at the 
roadside. By much shouting and more pushing, the men 
at last got the caissons past the wallow of gumbo to the 
hard road, where pulling was easy for the horses. 

On the night of the 27th the battery moved to the front 
edge of the woods. It was another struggle against heavy 
mud, and morning came ere the second platoon was finally 
in position. The two platoons were about half a kilometre 
apart. Lieutenant Leprohon commanding the first, and Lieu- 
tenant Lombardi the second. Brush and trees had to be 
cut down to permit firing without danger of a shell bursting 
prematurely in the tree tops in front of the guns. Gun 
pits were commenced, proving a difficult task in the 
sticky clay full of wiry roots. But these were not finished 
by us. After three days here, the battery was relieved by 
artillery of the 89th Division, and started on the cross 
country hike to the Argonne, whence had come a hurry 
call for the tired veterans of the 42nd Division to aid the 
troops held up at one part of the line by terrific resistance 
on the part of the Germans. 

The horse lines, near Nonsard, occupied one of the 
many elaborate camps which the Germans had constructed 
in the vicinity. Boughs had been used with the lavishness of 
a millionaire building an elaborate rustic garden. Walks, 
roads, fences, shacks, ornamental gateways, were all of 
this material, in camps covering acre after acre. Piles of 

67 



empty hogsheads, and wicker tables and benches, gave evi- 
dence that the enemy troops had not hved an overhard Hfe 
while they had been here. 

The battery pulled out of the horse-lines at 8 p. m., 
October 1, and hiked without stop till after midnight. After 
covering thirty kilometres, the battalion pulled in at an old 
German remount camp, near Ambly, alongside the canal. 
The following night the distance was shorter, but progress 
was slow and waits were long— during which the drivers 
fell asleep on their horses with blankets over their shoul- 
ders, and the dismounted men dozed in the grass at the 
side of the road, mindless of cold and damp. At 6 in the 
morning came the climb up the hill into the Camp du Bois 
de Meuse, where the whole 67th Brigade encamped. 

Spending the day of September 3 there, we made the 
next journey by daylight on September 4, rising at 4:45 
and pulling out on the road at 8. Our way led past the 
many camps where the French troops had been assemibled 
to engage in the terrible struggles about Verdun, and 
past fields, at Vadelaincourt, where the red crosses of 
French dead seemed to grow thick as wheat. A little 
beyond Rampont, we pulled into another camp, in Brocourt 
woods, where we spent the succeeding day greasing the 
carriage axles and cleaning the firing mechanism. On Oc- 
tober 6, the brigade moved forward up the hills from 
Recicourt, through Avocourt, razed to a mere pile of bricks 
and mortar, over roads still in process of mending by 
engineer battalions, and that afternoon into a wide valley, 
pock-marked with shell holes and bearing a desolate look, 
emphasized by the stark black tree trunks, stripped of their 
branches, as though the whole area had been swept by a 
blaze. This was what was left of the forest of Avocourt. 
Occasional shells burst on the ridge ahead, and orders were 
strict for every man to dig a hole for his bunk that night. 



68 



CHAPTER VII 
Through the Argonne to Sedan 

At nightfall October 7, the battery took the road over 
the hill toward Cierges in the rain and darkness. The posi- 
tion lay on a hillside not far from gun pits where a wrecked 
gun carriage and other debris showed how thoroughly a pre- 
ceding battery had been shelled out. From these gun pits 
the cannoneers carried abandoned ammunition all next day, 
while the pieces in turn kept up a bombardment of fifty 
rounds an hour. 

At mess, October 8, in the thicket near the windmill, 
the men first saw the newspapers bearing the news of Ger- 
many's acceptance of President Wilson's "Fourteen Points". 
Many rumors had come to their ears of the Kaiser's abdi- 
cation, of separate peace by Austria and Turkey, of Ger- 
many's surrender, etc. This was the first intimation of the 
facts, and gave rise to much speculation. There was little 
opportunity for speculation that night, however, for mess 
was scarcely over when shells bursting in the field and along 
the roads drove everyone to cover. A couple of hours later, 
the limbers came up, and the guns pulled out on the road. 
But the caissons were not loaded and drawn through the 
miry field so easily. Teams, after pulling out one caisson, 
had to go back to assist another. Day was breaking when 
Captain Robbins, calling the sergeants together, announced 
that the battery's mission was to accompany the advance of 
infantry of the 32d Division that morning, and haste must 
be made to reach the appointed spot in time. 

So the carriages were taken ahead at a trot, the cannon- 
eers following as rapidly as they could, along shelled roads, 
through the ruined village of Nantillois, passing the infan- 
try arising from their roadside holes for breakfast. A heavy 
fog hid the battery from the observation of the enemy and 
so removed some of the danger of the undertaking. Shells 
burst frequently on the hillside to the right and on the road 

69 



in front of us, along which long files of infantry advanced 
to the attack. When the other batteries of the regiment 
came up, in the afternoon of October 9, they were met by 
heavy sheUing on the road, four shells falling directly in 
Battery A. 

On the night of October 11 the battery pulled back to 
the horselines, which had moved to the left, near Cheppy. 
Arriving in the morning, the battery had only a few hours' 
rest, going forward again in the afternoon, to the left of our 
former positions, to relieve the 1st Division. Blocked roads, 
rain and cold, slow going and long stops, pushing carriages 
up long hills — it was an old story, relieved a little that night 
by a battalion of engineers who turned out of their shacks 
along the road and pushed our guns up the longest and 
steepest slope. By morning we were digging trail pits in 
a flat field on the right bank of the River Aire just behind 
the town of Fleville. In the trees along the river were bat- 
teries of the 320th F. A., belonging to the 82d Division, 
whose infantry occupied Fleville. Between them and our 
position were holes dug for shelter littered with blankets, 
gas masks, helmets and other equipment of the German sol- 
diers who had occupied them not long before. Opposite 
us the Aire was dammed to form a pool, alongside which 
was a sign, "Schwimmung verboten". 

Though we had had almost no sleep for two days, we 
dug all day October 13, to be ready to fire when called upon. 
To obtain an elevation of 25 degrees, the trail pit must go 
nearly three feet deep in an arc eight or ten feet long. If 
the ground ofTered much resistance, there was a heavy job 
for the five or six men of the gun's crew. Fortunately we 
slept long that night, with only an interruption of two hours' 
guard for each man. 

At 6:30 next morning we began firing at a rate of 80 
rounds per hour, continuing, with gradually decreasing rate, 
until 3 :30 that afternoon, expending a total of about 2,300 
rounds. In this attack, our infantry broke through the 
formidable Kriemhilde Stellung, taking Hill 288 by noon. 
During the succeeding days the battery fired constantly. On 
the 16th the infantry captured the Cote de Chatillon in a 
whirlwind attack, taking also Musard Farm. 

The enemy sent plenty in return at the same time. We 
had forewarning of this the day we arrived, when the field 

70 



in front of us was full of smoking holes. The constant 
procession of guns and wagon trains up the road on our 
right drew fire. So did the 155mm. rifles that thundered 
and blazed on the other side of the road. So did the 
exposed horse-lines of the batteries in the trees ahead of us. 
At first an occasional shower of earth was all that dis- 
turbed us. A few days later the enemy dumped a few 
"ash-cans" or "freight-cars," as they were picturesquely 
called, not many hundreds of yards from us. These, with 
a thunderous, ear-splitting crash, sent huge black geysers of 
earth and smoke, scattering fragments far and wide. Then 
came a mysterious missile that seemed to explode twice, and 
burst near us almost as soon as we had heard its warning 
scream. One of these, striking a box of fuses in Battery F, 
caused considerable unrest. Next the batteries ahead were 
the target for so much shelling that they and their horse- 
lines moved out. Our relief was shortlived. On the morn- 
ing of October 20 while the men were still asleep beneath 
their pup tents, in shelter holes approximately two feet deep, 
big shells began to drop along the muddy trail that ran from 
the highroad to our position. The fragments that cut cam- 
ouflage ropes and pierced fuse-boxes were forgotten when 
it was learned that two shells had struck amidst us squarely, 
both fortunately "duds". One buried itself in the ground 
alongside the trail of the second piece. The other, piercing 
a pup tent in the fourth section, scorched its way through 
Becker's blankets, and disappeared into the earth, leaving 
him benumbed in the foot which the shell had so narrowly 
missed and much confused in the head as to what might 
happen next. All morning the boys could only gaze at the 
hole in the ground and talk about E battery's horseshoe. 

That afternoon, the battery moved back about 300 yards, 
enough to escape the enemy's shells if his aeroplanes had 
discovered our old position, to which the morning's greeting 
lent belief. 

At this time Lieutenant Waters, returned from Battery B, 
was in command, having succeeded Captain Robbins a few 
days before, when the latter took Major Redden's place at 
the head of the battalion. Lieutenants Leprohon and Ennis 
were in charge of the first and second platoons, respectively, 
and Lieutenant Neiberg was in command at the horse-lines. 
A few days previously Sergeant Jones left the Fourth Sec- 

71 



tion to go to officers' school, together with Sergeant Kihier, 
who had been in charge at the horse-Unes since his return 
from the hospital. Corporal Donald Brigham succeeded to 
the charge of the Fourth Section, Colvin becoming gunner. 

After we had moved back, the mechanics improvised a 
bath-house for the battery by the conjunction of a big 
wooden tub and a cauldron to heat the water in a shack be- 
side the stream. In a time and place where baths — to say 
nothing of the temperature of the water used — were an 
extreme rarity, we were greatly thankful that the departing 
enemy had left these articles for this valuable use. The cab- 
bage patches in this vicinity-came to good purpose for the 
battery kitchen, also. 

On the evening of October 26, the Second Battalion 
moved up through Fleville and to the right, near Sommer- 
ance. This spot is historically known by the battery as 
"Gassy Gulch". Our guns were located behind a line of 
bushes along a sharp embankment ten to fifteen feet high 
that descended to a dirt road. Along this road were lined 
American 155mm. rifles. In front of them, on the gentle 
slope to a low crest ahead, were several French batteries. 
To our right were 75's, 155mm. howitzers, and 155mm. 
rifles indiscriminately mixed. The whole 67th Brigade, 
some batteries of heavy corps artillery, and several French 
batteries were concentrated in this little valley. 

The dirt road in front and the high road, which ran at 
an angle behind, drew much fire, making the drivers' task 
in bringing up caissons of ammunition a dangerous one. 
On the day the battery moved up, a shell bursting close 
wounded Cook and killed the horse under him. But Ser- 
geant Lucius Brigham's coolness in cutting out the dead 
horse and leading the hitch safely through prevented greater 
damage from the resulting confusion ; for this work he was 
highly commended by the regimental commander. 

Several days later this road was heavily gassed. All 
traffic was held back till shelling should let up. On this 
account no rations had gone up from the horse-lines the day 
before. When, on the second attempt, Rosse insisted on 
making the trip, an M. P. stopped him: 

"You can't go up that road. You'll never get through 
the gas and shelling." 

11 



An officer argued, too, "Don't take that road. It's too 
dangerous." 

"The boys gotta hava the rash," insisted Jerry imper- 
turbably. And he lashed up his horse, and galloped past with 
the ration cart. When he arrived at the position, his eyes 
and nose were streaming from the effect of the gas, and he 
could scarcely see. But the boys, "they gotta the rash !" 
For this act the regimental commander highly commended 
Rosse, remarking on his "high sense of duty and excep- 
tional courage." 

Gas alarms were frequent at night. The itching in one's 
throat left no doubt of there being actual danger present. 
The favorable wind carried away the noxious fumes of 
several shells that burst at the edge of the flat-tops. The 
boys dug their bunks deep to escape the fragments. Near 
the machine gunners, the shells burst thick, and both Dona- 
hue and Harry Overstreet were sent to the hospital with 
bad poison burns. Practically everyone at the position suf- 
fered a little from gas, some in one way and some in 
another, but, since they were afflicted in no violent way, 
they stuck to their work, disregarding minor discomforts. 

Friday morning, November 1, was the big barrage in 
which Battery E fired its last shot of the war. At 3 :30 
a. m. began the preliminary fire, at 100 rounds per hour. 
Then followed the barrage, with first reduced charge shell, 
then smoke shell and normal charge shell, and finally high 
velocity shell, reaching a range of nearly 12,000 metres 
when the firing ceased, at 1 :30 p. m. The total for each 
gun was over 1,000 rounds. 

This barrage was fired in support of the infantry of the 
2nd Division, which had relieved our own infantry. After 
the marine brigade had broken through the Freya Stellung 
in the morning, capturing the villages of St. Georges and 
Landres-et-St. Georges, the brigade of regulars kept on 
going, driving the enemy out of range of our guns. 

By Sunday the enemy was so far away that even the 
heavy guns about us had to cease firing. The Frenchmen 
in the neighboring batteries were gloriously drunk in the 
prospect of a speedy victory and early peace. That night 
the battery pulled out, not to rest, as we had been expectantly 
hoping in the midst of fatigue and discomfort from gas, 
etc., but to go ahead in pursuit. Our infantry had relieved 

73 



the 78th Division and were to march to Sedan. To make 
matters worse for the dismounted men, an order was issued 
that each man must carry his full pack upon his back, to 
lighten the load for the worn out horses. So we staggered 
up the mud roads to Thenorgues, where we spent a sleepless 
day Monday moving carriages here and there to accommo- 
date the throng of traffic. In the afternoon we moved on, 
through Buzancy to Harricourt, where we made camp at 
dark, just as enemy planes dropped a succession of bombs 
on the road over which we had just passed. 

Next morning we learned that Battery E had indeed 
fired its last shot of the war. So low had the number of 
horses become in the brigade that it was determined to send 
forward only the guns of two batteries in each battalion, 
turning over to them the horses and drivers of the batteries 
left behind. This wise provision made it possible for the 
149th to be constantly up in support of the infantry in the 
long chase northward, when other artillery outfits were 
straggling along miles in the rear. Since Battery E's com- 
mander was ranked in seniority by the captains of both 
D and F batteries, our guns were left behind. 

Although the second battalion did not fire on this pur- 
suit, the trip was an extremely severe one, entailing little 
rest, scant opportunity for meals, and constant exposure to 
shell fire on the road. The hardships of the journey are 
engraven deeply in the memories of Battery E's drivers. 
Near Cherery, November 7, they were caught by heavy 
shell fire fully horsed and limbered up, but got off the road 
without injury or confusion. Worst of all was the night 
of November 9, at Bulson. As the batteries entered the 
town, the guns of the enemy seemed trained by direct obser- 
vation on the cross roads, and shell after shell fell directly 
in the path of the column. The casualties were the heaviest 
of any day in the regiment's history. The death of George 
Hama caused the deepest sorrow in the battery, heavier even 
when the first shock of the news was past and the loss came 
to be actually felt. That he should have gone through all 
the service of the battery, to be stricken down on almost the 
last day of hostilities, was tragic indeed, but the fact that 
he was gone, no matter how or when, was to his fellows the 
greater tragedy. McLean and Loring Schatz were wovnided 
the same night. Lieutenant Leprohon went to the hospital, 

74 



having been severely gassed when he tore off his mask to 
guide the batteries up the shelled road, winning the admira- 
tion of all the men by his courage and energy. 

In the meantime the remainder of the battery, at Harri- 
court, had cleaned out for their quarters German barracks 
and an old stone building that had been a prison pen. Guard 
duty and care of the few horses left occupied their time. So 
fast were the troops advancing to the northward that com- 
munication was slight, and only the vaguest rumors of what 
was happening ahead reached the men now left in the rear. 
Reports of an armistice were so persistent that they were 
believed by some, days before the actual event, and disbe- 
lieved by others even when confirmed. Every night glares, 
bonfires and signal rockets indicated celebration at some 
point on the horizon. But the men at Harricourt could not 
give credence to such good news while the drivers were 
still gone. These men returned to the battery November 
10. Upon arriving at the gates of Sedan, the 42nd Division, 
occupying the suburb of Wadelincourt, had yielded to the 
French the honor of entering this historic city, one battalion 
of our infantry accompanying the French general on that 
occasion. At retreat November 11, Captain Waters form- 
ally announced the signing of the armistice. But there was 
a sting in the good tidings in the announcement that the 
42nd Division would probably go into Germany as a part 
of the Army of Occupation, which killed such glad reports 
as that the Rainbow Division would sail from Bordeaux 
immediately upon the cessation of hostilities, and other 
equally welcome though groundless bits of rumor. 



7S 



CHAPTER VIII 

HIKING INTO GERMANY 

On November 15, Battery E began the long hike into 
Germany, a total of 350 kilometres, the dismounted men 
covering it all on foot. During the first few days they 
carried full packs, but later these were put on the carriages, 
as before the order at Sommerance. The first day's journey 
was only seven kilometres, through Buzancy, to Imecourt. 
There the battery received forty men from the 80th Division, 
as replacements, to bring the organization up to full strength. 
They brought with them 116 horses, to replace our old ones, 
which, such as could work, had been turned over to the 
First Battalion. 

After fitting the harness to these new horses next morn- 
ing, we made another short hike, to a wide valley near 
Ancreville, where we spent a cold, windy night in pup tents. 
These slight shelters, however, the men had learned to 
make very comfortable protection against the elements, by 
banking soil about the edges and covering the open end 
with slickers or shelter-halves. 

The following morning the second and third pieces were 
fitted with new tubes, and the caissons were loaded with 
ammunition before the battery set out again, this time on 
a march of twenty-two kilometres. Crossing the river on 
pontoons at Dun-sur-Meuse, and winding our weary way 
over hills on the opposite side through interminable woods 
in the descending darkness, we came to the town of Brehe- 
ville, surrounded by hundreds of lights and bonfires of the 
brigade camping for the night. Fortunately we had billets 
in the village, and thereafter always were billeted in towns, 
though sometimes our sleeping quarters were only barns and 
hay mows, not remarkable for either comfort or shelter. At 
Breheville we stayed for two days, receiving some new 
clothes and cleaning up at the bath house contrived out of 

76 



the stone structure where ordinarily the housewives of the 
town do their washing. 

November 20 we made another long journey, to Thonne 
les Pres, under the fortified heights of Montmedy-Haut, and 
the next day a still longer one into Belgian territory. At 
Montmedy we had opportunity to see how far the Germans 
had carried their occupation of the land they had held for 
the previous four years. An electric power plant lit the 
streets and houses of the town, the "mairie" and other 
buildings had been converted into hospitals, and extensive 
railroad yards, gun repair shops and factories spoke of 
important activity here by the enemy. 

The first Belgian towns we entered, Lamarteau, Dom- 
partin and the city of Virton, were gaily decorated with 
arches of greenery, festoons of paper lanterns, and flags 
of the Allied nations, in welcome of the American troops. 
We came at night to St. Leger, where Battery E was quar- 
Jered in the school house. 

The following night found us in a similar building at 
Arlon, on which the words, "Volkschule fiir Madschen," 
were painted over those of the French name. Arlon still 
showed the marks of having been a wealthy city, of fine 
buildings and a wide variety of shops. The barbarian 
ravages which had desolated the northern part of Belgium 
had not spread here. But the scarcity of food and other 
supplies, and the citizens' accounts of extortion and cruelty, 
revealed the same spirit of oppression. 

From Belgium into Luxembourg we went November 23, 
encountering at the border a gendarme in a uniform worthy 
of a general. There were not the welcoming demonstrations 
across the border that had greeted us in the Belgian towns. 
The houses were closed, and even the children kept ofif the 
street. A blind neutrality still prevailed in the duchy. Late 
at night we entered Brouch, where we stayed the following 
week, over Thanksgiving day. 

The week was filled with foot drill, gun drill, grooming, 
cleaning harness and carriages, and inspections. But there 
was ample time for making the acquaintance of the towns- 
folk, with the ulterior motive of securing "apfelkuchen," 
"waffien," or a full meal. Food, it became evident, was not 
so scarce as in Belgium, and could always be obtained if the 
American soldiers were willing to pay the prices which the 



natives, upon learning the extent of the demand, gradually 
pushed to exorbitant figures. Not content with their gains 
through extortionate prices, they asked the rate of ex- 
change, from francs to marks, that had prevailed before the 
war, when, as a matter of fact, the mark was much below the 
value of a franc, and rapidly descending farther. However, 
some of the inhabitants, who had lived in the United States, 
or had relatives living there, were cordial indeed, among 
them the chief magistrate of the "dorf," who had laid the 
foundations of his fortune as a barkeeper in some Chicago 
Loop saloons of fame. 

Turkey was not served Thanksgiving day. The army 
issue for the day was corned beef hash. But Battery E ate 
a Thanksgiving meal, nevertheless. A foraging detail went 
out several days before and was able to buy vegetables, 
apples and pork, going clear back to Arlon for the meat. 
So the menu comprised roast pork, rich gravy, apple sauce, 
mashed potatoes, salad, cake, bread and cofifee, and the 
quantity precluded requests for "seconds." 

Sunday morning, December 1, the battery took the road 
again, up and down hills, whose gloom of dark pines and 
gray tree trunks was lightened by the carpet of brilliant 
red leaves beneath them — a landscape peculiarly and always 
recognizably that of Luxembourg — arriving in Bourglinster 
late in the afternoon. Next day we made another" march of 
more than twenty kilometres, reaching Osweiler. 

There was a competition for speed at "harness and 
hitch" on the morning of November 3, and the winner, the 
Third Section, led the battery when it entered Germany that 
day, crossing the Sarre river at Echtemach. When the 
battery arrived at Alsdorf to spend the night, orders were 
given that, now that we were on enemy soil, there should 
be no fraternizing with the natives whatsoever, and no 
intercourse save in line of military duty. These rigid 
restrictions were lightened a day or two later, when it was 
permitted to buy meals or make other purchases of the in- 
habitants, but otherwise "fraternizing" is still forbidden in 
the Army of Occupation. All sentries went in pairs, doub- 
ling the size of the guard, patrols walked the streets of the 
towns in which we stayed, and everyone wore his "45" at 
all times. Such precautions were hardly necessary, for the 
people of the Rhineland are the most peaceable of the ex- 

78 



Kaiser's ex-subjects, and much prefer to devote their time 
to their farms instead of fighting people whose money they 
would far rather have than their blood. ' 

Most of E battery was billeted in a flour mill — which 
seemed to have plenty of grain to grind — -at Alsdorf . Next 
day a shorter hike brought us to Ingendorf, where the bil- 
lets were principally haylofts. On the march of November 
5, we passed through the city of Bitburg, whose stone build- 
ings, heavy architecture, numerous shops with plate-glass 
windows, and fine residences reminded us more of an 
American city than had any French town we had seen. The 
night we spent in the village of Malbergweich. 

A long hike next day, about thirty kilometres, took us 
through the city of Kylberg and along the Kyi river, to 
Lissingen, where we caught up with units of the 2nd Di- 
vision, which preceded us. We did only seven kilometres 
on Saturday, through Gerolstein, to Pelm. The ruins of the 
old castle of Casselberg, on a neighboring hilltop furnished 
a bit of historical interest to those whose appetite for sight- 
seeing was strong enough to overcome the pain of sore feet. 
Next day's hike was eighteen kilometres to Nohn. From 
there, on December 9, we went, through Adenau, to Quid- 
delbach, where we stayed for five days. Five days of mud 
and rain, with intervals of sunshine, while the battery 
cleaned harness and carriages, and groomed horses. 

Sunday, December 15, we marched back to Adenau and 
thence to Altenahr and down the valley of the Ahr to 
Dernau, our home for the next month. Though rain and 
mists were frequent and the winds swept chilly between the 
high craggy walls of the valley, the discomfort of these 
elements during the hours at drill and at work on the picket 
line were alleviated by the compensating hours of warmth 
and comfort in the billets. These in most cases were 
ground-floor rooms — often the parlor of the house — fur- 
nished with tables, chairs, stoves and electric light. Our 
beds were the hard floors, sometimes softened by straw 
ticks. 

Passes to Ahrweiler were in demand. In this, the capi- 
tal of the "Kreis" or province, whose gates and ruined wall 
remained of medieval centuries, were to be had candy, at 
very high prices; "kuchen," of varying excellence; and 
rings, Iron Crosses and other souvenirs in abundance. But 
the charms of this place faded before those of Bad Neuen- 

79 



ahr, two kilometres farther down the river, which came into 
prominence later as a divisional leave area. There the big 
hotels, housing the 150th F. A., the Kurhaus, the Casino, 
and the baths, along the brawling little river Ahr, spoke of a 
resort international in fame before the war. These all 
became conveniences for the American soldiers. 

The foraging detail which had produced so good a 
Thanksgiving dinner, went out again for Christmas. Corpo- 
ral Unger, Corporal Collier and Sergeant Pond scoured 
the countryside. Finances had been provided by the house's 
interest in games of poker, craps and chuck-a-luck on sev- 
eral evenings at Quiddelbach. Chocolate and soap, however, 
were better buyers than francs and marks, for these com- 
modities were very nearly priceless to the farmers in the 
vicinity. 

On Christmas Eve the square stone building which had 
served as the battery guardhouse was thrown open to the 
battery, decorated with pine boughs and holly, with a 
spangled, candle-lighted Christmas tree in the center. Every 
man received chocolate, cakes and tobacco, and a little 
gift from Captain Waters. Just outside, a huge bonfire 
threw a red warmth over the whole scene, not the least 
part of which was a barrel of beer tapped for the occasion. 
Next day a holiday dinner was served, of roast pork, mashed 
potatoes, creamed onions, apple sauce, cabbage salad, apple 
pie, bread, butter and coffee. Of the additional rabbit, 
chicken and other dinners that were served in the billets that 
day, this history hath recollection but no menus. 

About twenty-five men less ate the same meal New 
Year's day, for, on the day before, those afflicted even 
slightly with scabies had been sent to the hospital at Neuen- 
ahr, where some of them spent a prolonged vacation amidst 
the already recounted enjoyments of the resort town. 

When, on January 7, the battery left Demau, it was 
with some regret at parting with comfortable quarters. But 
that regret was forgotten when we arrived at Ringen, a 
farming town on the upland away from the left bank of the 
river. For here were not only rooms as comfortable as 
those at Dernau, but beds as well, a "wirtschaft" to serve 
as a mess hall, and stables for all the horses. The town held 
only Batteries E and F, and therefore allowed more elbow- 
room than did Dernau, where all six batteries of the regi- 

80 



ment had been crowded in. Later the rest of the regiment 
moved up from the valley, after Colonel Reilly returned to 
the command of the regiment at the beginning of February, 
and Ringen, first on the main road from Neuenahr and 
Ahrweiler, assumed more importance than ever, though 
regimental headquarters was farther on, at Vettelhoven, 
and the First Battalion headquarters were at Geldsdorf, six 
kilometres away. 

Only a week had passed by at Ringen when the battery 
received the sad report of Captain Waters' death, in the 
hospital at Coblenz, whither he had gone from Dernau. He 
had been a private of Battery E when it went to the Mexi- 
can border, and esteemed the privilege of commanding that 
same battery very highly, containing, as it did, his early 
associates in the ranks. 

Two days later the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Redden 
struck the men an even harder blow. The men of the Sec- 
ond Battalion gave him their full devotion when he had 
been their major. When Colonel Reilly had been raised to 
the command of the 83d infantry brigade, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Redden had led the 149th Field Artillery through 
the hardest days of the war, accepting the most arduous 
tasks and heaviest responsibility. And when the men of the 
regiment followed him on the long hard march into Ger- 
many, they looked forward to the day when he should lead 
them home. In addition to the capacity to command, he had 
the quality to inspire admiration, respect and love in his 
men. They felt, when the news of his death reached them, 
that they had lost not alone a capable and admired com- 
manding officer, but indeed a highly esteemed and dear 
friend. The funeral, at Coblenz, Saturday, January 18, was 
a splendid military tribute, the entire regiment marching 
behind the caisson that bore his body up the side of the 
Kartause to the hillside overlooking the Moselle river, where 
his body was laid near Captain Waters'. 

These two deaths postponed to the following week the 
famous "Stagger Inn" cabaret of Battery E. The perform- 
ances were held on the nights of January 21 and 22. On 
the program was a collection of remarkable talent drawn 
from the battery. Holden, Browere, Monroe and Gahan 
were remarkably attractive chorus beauties when they 
donned feminine attire borrowed from German households. 

81 



Van Hoesen, as a Hawaiian dancer, was unexcelled in his 
gyrations. Holton's solo, "Smiles," delivered with the as- 
sistance of the black swallow-tail, glistening shirt front, high 
hat and cane of the professional monologist, brought a 
hearty encore. George and Holden received heavy applause 
as drawing-room dancers. Pat O'Mara's efforts as a Scotch- 
man got much laughter, but the real variety bloomed in 
Wallace the second night. O'Brien, O'Mara, Gahan and 
Monroe rendered "My Little Belgian Rose," with more 
pathos than tune. To the black-faced waiters, dressed in 
the uniforms of Ringen's ex-soldiers, under the leadership 
of Oberkellner Unger, resplendent in brass and braid, be- 
longed much credit for the hilarity of the evening. Much 
could be said of the impromptu — and unconscious — amuse- 
ment afforded by Lieutenant Bradford's attempt to lead the 
orchestra, Captain Bokum's infatuation with Miss Browere, 
and the actions of various other Sam Browne-belted per- 
sonages. But words fail to picture the delirium of the occa- 
sion. 

A day in Coblenz, January 27, was the first of various 
passes and leaves for men of the battery. On this Monday 
practically all of the Chicago men of Battery E made the 
journey, riding to and from the Rhine city in American box 
cars, dining at the big hotels operated by the Y. M. C. A., 
attending the entertainment at the Festhalle, the city's fine 
opera house, entirely devoted to Y. M. C. A. activities now, 
and visiting the many shops, all well supplied with articles 
for sale. By the middle of February leaves were granted 
men of the 42d Division, and 14-day trips to points of inter- 
est in France or 7-day sojourns at the leave areas of Aix- 
les-Bains and vicinity were enjoyed by many men of the 
battery. 

Early in February two of the old men of the battery left 
us. Harrison and Collier, having residence in England, 
obtained their discharges and left for the British Isles. 

About the same time Colonel Reilly made his appearance 
in Ringen, back in command of the regiment, and thrilled 
the boys by telling them the division would go down the 
Rhine and sail from Rotterdam early in March. The Rot- 
terdam plan was not realized, however, and the expectations 
of early departure proved vain. 

82 



Instead of that happy plan materiahzing the reverse oc- 
curred. The horses of the 150th F. A. were turned over to 
the regiment when the Indiana artillery was motorized. The 
result was more grooming, and the horses seemed to be a 
greater and greater bugbear, as the number of men de- 
creased with the departure of some to the hospital and 
others on leave. 

But the spirits of the men did not down. The "Order 
of the Monk" developed, its degrees depending on one's 
success at a new solitaire, and its popularity on the chant 
that echoed through Ringen. "Apes" were many; "Monks" 
fairly numerous, but "Zimmermeisters," "Keepers of the 
Keys," etc., were few. Then the "raspberry" came into a 
vogue that threatened to pass all bounds. The query, "Have 
you been down the Rhine?" was not wholly for the purpose 
of ascertaining the extent of one's travel. "Slewfoot Kelly's 
Shoe and Belt Polish" was an article much advertised but 
not sold at the "Price : One Week." 

The schedule was about the following: 6:10, reveille. 
Feed and water horses. Mess. 8 :00 to 10 :00, horse exer- 
cise. 10:00 to 11:30, stables. 11:30 to 12:00, feed and 
water. Mess. 1 :30 to 2 :30, athletics. 2 :30 to 4 :00, stables. 
Feed and water. 6:00, mess. 

March 16 reports of going home were substantiated by 
the review of the entire division by General Pershing at 
Remagen. Wearing overcoats, helmets, side-arms and empty 
packs and fortified against hunger by two sandwiches apiece, 
the men were carried by motor trucks in the morning to the 
outskirts of Remagen. There the regiment assembled and 
marched to the music of the band through the city to a large 
field bordering the Rhine river just beyond the bridge. After 
the division had waited in formation over two hours, Gen- 
eral Pershing appeared at 2 p. m., the 149th band, posted in 
front as the divisional band, playing the welcoming music. 
After riding around the division on horseback. General 
Pershing inspected each organization on foot, and, fast as 
the general walked, it was past 5 o'clock when he completed 
his tour. Then followed the decorating of the colors and 
the award of medals to over forty men of the division. Most 
spectacular of all was the sight when the entire division, at 
one command, "Squads, right," marched past the reviewing 
stand in a column of regiments, like a whole sea of brown, 

83 



round helmets sweeping irresistibly onward. In his fare- 
well speech to the division, General Pershing praised it 
highly for its work, without which, he said, the Americans 
would not be celebrating victory now. 

The following day, amidst rain and snow, the division 
presented a mounted review on the road from Neuenahr to 
Heimersheim, waiting several hours in the cold for General 
Pershing to roll by in his Locomobile. 

Tuesday the men of the battery underwent a hypodermic 
injection that included in one "shot" the half dozen doses 
received at Camp Mills. The halting gait of the men next 
day, bent double with the stiffness amidships, gave the 
townspeople and members of Battery F great amusement, 
though the latter's was much tempered by their prospect of 
undergoing the same thing a day or two later. 

Sunday, March 23, the guns and caissons were taken to 
Oberwinter, and there turned in. The day was spent by 
the men who did not accompany the carriages, in cleaning 
and oiling all the battery's harness. Such was the enthusi- 
asm of the men at the prospect of getting rid of this cause 
of much labor, that the big task was completed hours be- 
fore anyone expected it could be. 

The departure of the horses next day was the signal for 
much joy, and the battery heaved a sigh of relief when they 
had gone. 

The resulting schedule shows good reason for their re- 
lief. Reveille was at 7. From 8 to 9 were calisthenics and 
some foot drill. At 10 the battery went out for foot drill 
or a road hike, carrying full packs. An hour's athletics in 
the afternoon completed the day's work. Baseball games 
were played with Battery F. A basketball team, under 
Lieutenant Kelly's coaching, defeated all opponents, with 
the invincible line-up of the two Durling brothers. Dodge, 
Vavrinek and Lieutenant Kelly. 

Friday morning, April 4, the battery marched to Gels- 
dorf, where the regiment assembled for the presentation 
of the "flammes de guerre" — red ribbons bearing the names 
and date of engagements in which the regiment participated 
— which were fastened on the regimental colors. The rib- 
bons read as follows : 

Luneville sector, Lorraine, France, February 21 to 
March 23. 

84 



Baccarat sector, Lorraine, France, March 31 to June 21. 

Esperance-Souain sector, Champagne, France, July 4 to 
July 14. 

Champagne-Marne defensive, France, July 15-19. 

Aisne-Marne offensive, France, July 25 to August 11. 

St. Mihiel offensive, France, September 12-16. 

Essey and Pannes sector, Woevre, France, September 
17-30. ■ 

Meuse-Argonne offensive, France, October 7 to Novem- 
ber 1. 

Meuse-Argonne offensive, France, November 5-9. 

Two days later we bade Ringen goodbye, marching out 
at 8 with full packs. The regiment assembled at Oeverich 
and paraded to the music of the band through each town 
en route, arriving at Remagen early in the afternoon. There 
the battery was billeted in the Hotel Fiirstenberg, one of 
several big hostelries that overlook the Rhine, its broad 
verandah scarcely a hundred feet from the river's edge. On 
Tuesday the battery made a short hike up the river to Ober- 
winter, where we boarded the train for Brest. The big 
American box cars, hot meals served when the train 
stopped, abundant candy and cigarettes from the welfare 
organizations, doughnuts and coffee and oranges at various 
stops made the ride far different from those we had taken 
months before from one front to another. The run, 72 
hours, equalled that of through passenger trains. 

At Brest there were three days of sanitary processes and 
equipment inspections, with a night of stevedore work at the 
docks sandwiched in. On the morning of April 15, the 
regiment marched from Camp Pontamezen to the docks, 
but the high sea prevented loading that day. So the regi- 
ment slept in cots in the dock sheds and embarked next day 
on the "Leviathan." 

Friday, April 18, eighteen months to a day since the 
regiment had sailed out of New York harbor on the "Presi- 
dent Lincoln," the 149th left Brest harbor, at 5 p. m., on 
the "Leviathan" with a load of over 12,000 Rainbow men, 
homeward bound. 

In comparison with the voyage on the "President Lin- 
coln," this was a pleasure trip. The greater deck space, the 
freedom of movement, the sense of security from the dan- 

85 



gers that threatened our passage over, the clear weather 
and the quiet sea, and, above all, the elation at the prospect 
of seeing home soon, made the week pass in swift happiness. 
Battery E minded not the two-meals-a-day plan, for we 
were on commissary detail, working where food was plenti- 
ful, and our badges gave us the run of the cooks' galleys, 
where we could cook impromptu meals for ourselves. 

About noon, Friday, April 25, land came in sight. In an 
hour or two, welcome boats appeared to greet us, and played 
about our ship like terriers around a great Dane. Then the 
Statue of Liberty brought a cheer from the crowded deck, 
and the "Leviathan" entered the Hudson River with bands 
playing fore and aft, drowned by the whistles that hailed 
us from boats and from shore. The office buildings of lower 
Manhattan blossomed with waving handkerchiefs, and pass- 
ing ferryboats seemed a mass of fluttering humanity. But 
their welcome was not more heartfelt than the intense, 
though quiet, satisfaction and joy of the boys at being home 
once more. 

As they transferred from the ship to the ferry boat at 
the adjoining dock, the boys received apples, candy, choco- 
late and other food, none of which was so welcome as a 
quarter of a juicy American apple pie, truly a token of 
home. After a short ride up the river, we boarded a train 
of American passenger cars, a great change from our previ- 
ous mode of railway transportation. A driving snow and 
a chilly wind reminded us that we were in a new climate, 
much different from the mild weather of the winter we had 
just passed. It was nearly midnight, after a hike of several 
miles to Camp Merritt with full packs, when we at last 
found our barracks, but the place buzzed in sleepless excite- 
ment long afterward. 

After going through the required sanitary processes 
next day and moving to new barracks, there followed several 
days of basking in the warmth of the New Jersey spring 
sun, trips to New York quite without regard to the limited 
number of passes allowed the battery, and details that 
bothered no one save perhaps some conscientious corporal. 

But everyone awaited impatiently to entrain for Chicago. 
May 6 was a joyful day. Indeed, no days were otherwise 
for the rest of the week. Leaving, at Dumont, at 3 Tuesday 
afternoon, the Second Battalion train reached the outskirts 

86 



of Chicago early Thursday morning. The bedlam of engine 
blasts as we passed the train yards was deafening. From 
then on, there was a continuous accompaniment of whistles 
and bells. All along the I. C. tracks, flags and pennants and 
handkerchiefs waved welcome. Nobody seemed to notice 
the light rain that fell. The way out of the Park Row 
station was so blocked by relatives and friends that it took 
over an hour to cover the three blocks to the Coliseum. 
As each soldier emerged, a joyful cry marked his discovery 
by those who hastened to fling themselves upon him. There 
is doubt whether there was a girl in Lagrange who failed 
to kiss Dick Barron. Nobody much cared about the forma- 
tion of the columns ; before long there wasn't any. Just 
happy soldiers walking along, each in the midst of his own 
joyous group. At the Coliseum were more relatives and 
friends, who made the next hour pass like a fraction of a 
minute. 

With steel helmets, gas masks and gun-belts, the regiment 
paraded between cheering crowds, north on Michigan boule- 
vard, south on State, north on Clark and south on La Salle, 
and everywhere in the Loop a throng packed the streets 
waiting for the boys to march by. Tired and wet, but very 
happy, they dined at the Congress hotel, and then sped on 
to Camp Grant late in the afternoon. 

Next day they entered the discharge mill, and Saturday 
noon. May 10, 1919, Battery E was a chapter of history, 
an extinct military organization, but still a living bond of 
memory among the men of its roster and among their rela- 
tives and friends who had worked so steadfastly for them 
when Battery E was in France. 



87 



ROSTER 



Adams, Allan B., 1st Lieut., Qaremont, Miss. 
Anderson, Frank O., Pvt., 734 W. 61st St., Chicago, 111. 
Anderson, Walter E., Pvt., 7030 S. May St., Chicago, 111. 
Ashcraft, Allan C, Pvt, 511 N. Macon St., Monroe, Mich. 
Avery, Daniel J., Corp., 101 i E. 41st PI., Chicago, 111. 

Baker, Edgar H., Pvt., 533 Bowen Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Balmer, John C, Pvt., 20 Church St., Ashley, Penn. 

Barnhart, Lynn G., Pvt., Carmichaels, Penn. 

Barron, William J., 130 N. Ashland Ave., La Grange, 111. 

Beatty, Harland G., Sgt., 200 Park Road, La Grange, 111. 

Beck, Herbert H., Pvt., 5448 Iowa St., Chicago, 111. 

Beck, Robert H., Pvt., 302 N. Pine Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Becker, Frederick C, Pvt., 6304 Magazine St., New Orleans, La. 

Berg, David W., Chief Mech., 10253 S. Elizabeth St., Chicago. 111. 

Bergeron, Arthur L., Pvt., Box 373, New Market, N. H. 

Barney, James T., Corp., 4705 N. Winchester Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Bindley, Carlton, Bugler, 1435 Catalpa Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Blackwell, Raymond C, Pvt., 5931 West End Ave., Chicago. 111. 

Boisacq, Raymond J., Cook, R. F. D. 1, Millville, N. J. 

Bolte, Roswell A., 2nd Lieut., 3757 Ellis Ave., Chicago. 111. 

Booker, Zeno, Pvt., 253 N. Sack St., Warrensburg. Mo. 

Bosenberg, William G., Pvt., 2816 California Ave.. Pittsburgh, Penn. 

Bowly, Devereux L., Pvt., 210 W. Water St., Winchester, Va. 

Bowra, Harold W., Pvt., 1217 W. Garfield Blvd., Chicago, 111. 

Bradley, James C, Pvt., Meely, Miss. 

Brewer, Thurlow W., 1st Lieut., 705 N. Prairie St., Bloomington, 

111. 
Brigham, Donald, Sgt., 1610 Washington Ave., Wilmette, 111. 
Brigham, Lucius, Sgt., 1610 Washington Ave., Wilmette, 111. 
Browere, Harold, Pvt.. 6408 Harvard Ave., Chicago. 111. 
Brown, Lewis F., Pvt., Wheaton, Minn. 
Brydon, John H., Pvt., 16 Sixth Ave., La Grange, 111. 
Buckley, Joseph H., Corp., 381 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 

Cahill, Daniel, Saddler, 1748 Ogden Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Carlson, John S., Pvt.. Linghem. Sweden 
Carroll, Edward J., Pvt., 226 Bertha St., Pittsburgh, Penn. 
Clark, Lyman, W., Corp., 684 Irving Park Blvd., Chicago, 111. 



Collier, Robert, Jr., Corp., 5446 Fulton St., Chicago, 111. 
Colvin, Donald K., Corp., 6146 Dorchester Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Colwell, Charles H., Pvt., 281 Marion St., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Connery, Charles P., Pvt., 236 N. Clark St., Chicago, 111. 
Cook, Harold W., Pvt., 5206 Kimbark Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Coon, Carrol L., Pvt., Minton Junction, Wis. 
Cromley, George, Pvt., R. F. D. 2, Hubbard, O. 
Crowther, Frank H., Sgt., 4615 N. Seeley Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Darst, William G., Pvt., Glasgow, Mont. 

Dearborn, Allen B., Pvt., 719 Lawrence Ave., Janesville, Wis. 
DeCamp, Harry I., Pvt., 41 S. Kensington Ave., La Grange, 111. 
Dodge, Wilbur K., Pvt., 3916 N. Kostner Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Dolan, Leslie A., Pvt., 4451 W. Congress St., Chicago, 111. 
Donahue, Leo J., Pvt., 8119 S. Green St., Chicago, 111. 
Dunn, George L., Pvt., 5427 Harper Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Durling, Charles, Pvt., 8516 Euclid Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Durling, Paul L., Pvt., 6504 Minerva Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Eadie, William, Pvt., 3401 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Ekberg, Roy H., Corp., 25 Bluff Ave., La Grange, 111. 
Ennis, Callistus J., 1st Lieut., 79 W. Monroe St., Chicago, 111. 
Enright, Thomas, Pvt., 5225 Emerald Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Evans, David W., Pvt., 774 Clark St., Hammond, Ind. 

Fagan, William J., Corp., 5841 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Farquharson, Frank C, Pvt., Western Springs, 111. 
Farrell, James E., Pvt., 4946 W. Superior St., Chicago, 111. 
Finer, Harold A., Pvt., 123 Lincoln Ave., Waukegan, 111. 
Fisher, Charley, Pvt., Chicago, Ottawa & Peoria Railroad, Joliet, III. 
Freeberg, Carl, Corp., 614 N. Waiola Ave., La Grange, 111. 
French, Ralph L., Pvt., 125 S. Stone Ave., La Grange, 111. 
Fryer, David H., Pvt., 329 Menard Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Fuhrman, Richard, Pvt., Goodbee, La. 

Gahan, William J., Pvt., 5757 S. Carpenter St., Chicago, 111. 
George, Willis D., Pvt., 525 N. East Ave., Oak Park, 111. 
Gibbs, Frederick R., Pvt., 424 Pleasant St., Oak Park, 111. 
Gibbs, Lawrence B., Corp., 2175 Fourteenth St., Troy, N. Y. 
Glosup, Raymond R., Pvt., Wheaton, 111. 
Gough, Arthur A., Pvt., Mineral Point, Mo. 
Grose, Wilbur E., Pvt., Swiss, W. Va. 
Grund, Harry T., Pvt., 1407 Pratt Blvd., Chicago, 111. 
Grund, Norman, Bugler, 1407 Pratt Blvd., Chicago, 111. 
Gustavson, Rudolph, Pvt., 1411 N. Keeler Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Haase, Paul C. F., Pvt., 606 N. Ashland Ave., La Grange, 111. 
Hall, James G., Pvt., 2825 E. Venengo St., Philadelphia, Penn. 
Hanson, Thomas H.. Sgt., River Lawn Farm, Sodus, Mich. 
Hardy, Edward L., Pvt.. 1132 W. Ontario St., Oak Park, 111. 
Harris, Donald J., Cook, Gilman, 111. 
Harrison, William A., Pvt., 21 Wicker, Sheffield, England 

90 



Headley, Fred C, 2nd Lieut., 90 Bennet St., Phillipsburg, N. J. 

Hecker, William R., Pvt., 4025 S. Artesian Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Hermes, Charles, Pvt., 531 N. Ridgeland Ave., Oak Park, 111. 

Herrod, Chester E., Corp., Youngstown, O. 

Hershberger, Emanuel B., Pvt., Kouts, Ind. 

Higgins, Allan, Mech., 1616 E. 55th St., Chicago, 111. 

Hodgins, Thomas A., Pvt., 4014 Lexington St., Chicago, 111. 

Hoivaag, Ole P., Pvt., 420 Juneway Drive, Braddock, Penn. 

Holden, William W., Pvt., 534 N. East Avenue, Oak Park, 111. 

Holton, Lloyd E., 1st Sgt., 46 Linda St., Oakland, Cal. 

Home, Frazier, Pvt., Fort Green Springs, Fla. 

Hoskins, William, Jr., Sgt., 49 S. 6th Ave., La Grange. 111. 

Howe, Carl, Jr., Pvt., 315 S. East Ave.. Oak Park, 111. 

Howe, Fred A., Sgt., 211 N. Delaware St., Indianapolis. Ind. 

Humble, John R.. Pvt., 1022 E. Jeflferson Blvd., South Bend, Tnd. 

Humphreys. Milton H., Pvt.. Sutton. W. Va. 

Hurndon, Prentiss, Pvt., 1939 Music St., New Orleans, La. 

Hutchinson, Paul, Cook, 6318 Harper Ave.. Chicago, III. 

Jamison, Ralph D., Pvt., 210 Whitfield St., Pittsburgh Penn. 

Jensen, Otto, Pvt., Bloomfield, Neb. 

Johnson, Arthur E., Pvt., 99 N. Lincoln St., Hinsdale, 111. 

Johnson, Frank O.. Stable Sgt., Streator, 111. 

Johnson, Roy H., Pvt., Herold. Braxton Countv, W. Va. 

Jones, Stephen B., Sgt., 232 N. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park. 111. 

Kaden, Erwin E., Pvt., 3721 Greenview Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Kaden, Walter A., Horseshoer, 1245 N. La Salle St., Chicago, 111. 

Kearfott, Franklin C, Pvt., 4247 N. Hermitage Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Kelly, Ralph A., 1st Lieut., R. F. D. 2, Box 38, Huntington, Ind. 

Kilner, Arthur G., Sgt., Clarendon Hills, 111. 

Kilner, Frederic R., Pvt.. 2715 Warren Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Kimbrell, Lee B., Cook, Braxton. Miss. 

King, William B., Corp., 2305 Calumet Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Klemz, Henry E., Corp., 1741 Fletcher St., Chicago, 111. 

Knapp, Anthony. Pvt., Coteau, N. Dak. 

Knight, Eugene W., Pvt., Shuqulak, Miss. 

Kulicek, Joseph. Jr., Pvt., 1921 S. 63rd Ct., Chicago, 111. 

Kurtz, Henry Z., Pvt., 1425 S. Homan Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Ladd, Elwood K., Pvt., 105 Throop St., Chicago, 111. 
Lamb, Howard M.. Pvt.. 424 Oakdale Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Landrus, Paul E., 2nd Lieut., 34 West Ave., Wellsboro, Penn. 
Lawrence, Stuart M.. Pvt.. 2228 W. 119th St., Chicago, 111. 
LeGregg, Jules, Pvt., Armour Packing Co.. New Orleans. La. 
Lesh, Llewellyn B., Pvt., 4520 Lake Park Ave.. Chicago, 111. 
Lidwell, Bernard J., Pvt.. Ashville. Penn. 
List, Max H.. Corp., 1508 E. 67th PI., Chicago, 111. 
Lobaugh, David P.. Pvt., Rimersburg, Penn. 
Loomis, Harry E.. Jr., Sgt., 3415 Calumet Ave., Chicago. 111. 
Lyons, Arthur V., Pvt., 1111 E. 55th St.. Chicago. 111. 
Lyons, Thomas, Pvt., 1401 W. Marquette Rd., Chicago, 111. 

91 



Mackenzie, William, Corp., 330 S. Taylor Ave., Oak Park, 111. 
Madere, Ellie, Pvt., La Place, La. 

Magnusen, Waldo M., Pvt., 2738 S. Throop St., Chicago, 111. 
Mangan, James E., Corp., 4328 N. Albany Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Manska, James J., Horseshoer, Route 3, Box 169, Owatonna, Minn. 
Marshall, Charles F., Mech., Paw Paw, 111. 
Mason, Frederic O., Corp., 603 Elm St., Winnetka, 111. 
McAleer, James R., Pvt., 905 Branch Ave., Providence, R. I. 
McCarthy, Harold J., Pvt., 8840 Commercial Ave., S. Chicago, 111. 
McCartney, Daniel P., Pvt., 7305 Dorchester Ave., Chicago, 111. 
McDermott, George J., Pvt., 206 Wilmot St., DuQuesne, Penn. 
McDonald, George W., Pvt., Platts, W. Va. 
McEIhone, Fred H., Sgt., 134 So. La Salle St., Chicago, 111. 
McLean, Donald F., Pvt., 325 N. Grove Ave., Oak Park, 111. 
McWatters, John, Jr., 146 N. La Porte Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Mead, Thomas E., Pvt., 137 Gold St., Buffalo, N. Y. 
Mecham. Florus D., Pvt., 99 First St., Hinsdale, 111. 
Meidinger, Harold F., Pvt., 1833 Millard Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Messina, Herman C, Pvt., Apalachicola, Fla. 
Miles, Benjamin F., Pvt., Riverside, 111. 

Miles, Frank H., Mech., 106 N. Madison Ave., La Grange, 111. 
Miller, Frank R., Pvt., 416 Broad St., Chambersburg, Penn. 
Monroe, Howard C, Sgt., 1648 E. 53rd St., Chicago, 111. 
Moodie, Leslie A., Pvt., 1151 Hyde Park Blvd., Chicago, 111. 
Morency, Paul W., Pvt., 122 S. Elmwood Blvd., Chicago, 111. 
Mortimer, Randolph L. Pvt., 7410 Luella Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Mosier, George W., Pvt., 2824 Madison St., Chicago, 111. 
Motschman, Herman, Corp., 1029 Wolfram St., Chicago, 111. 
Mulligan, John J., Pvt., 74 Chapel St., East End, Wilkesbarre, Penn. 

Naughton, John J., Pvt., 4828 S. Marshfield Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Nelson, Paul A., Pvt., 312 Ashland Blvd., Chicago, 111. 

Neiburg, Simon J., 1st Lieut, Paxton, 111. 

Newell, Kenneth E., 2nd Lieut., 1412 Hyde Park Blvd., Chicago, 111. 

Nickerson, Edward, Pvt., Parkview, Elm Grove, W. Va., R. F. D. 4 

Nickerson, Howard C, Pvt., North Harwich, Mass. 

Nikoden, Thomas J., Corp., Terminal Theatre, Lawrence Ave. & 

Spaulding St., Chicago, 111. 
Nixon, Edwin M., Pvt., 4858 Monticello Ave., Chicago, 111. 

O'Brien, Daniel J., Corp., 4416 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Odell. Irving, Major, 230 W. Randolph St., Chicago, 111. 
Olmstead, Clarence A., Pvt., 1512 Fourteenth Ave., Meridian, Miss. 
O'Mara, Patrick J., Pvt., 624 W. 54th PI., Chicago, 111. 
O'Meara, John J., Sgt., 6571 Lakewood Ave., Chicago, III. 
O'Reilly, John J., Pvt., 3805 N. Crawford Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Ouelette, Harry O., Pvt., 4700 Sheridan Rd., Chicago, 111. 
Overstreet, Albert P., Pvt., 112 Home Ave., Oak Park, 111. 
Overstreet, Edward V., Pvt., 112 Home Ave., Oak Park, 111. 
Overstreet, Harry, Pvt., 112 Home Ave., Oak Park, 111. 

Paine, Qifford S., Pvt., 254 Barret St., Burlington, la. 
Pells, Michael J., Pvt., 6 Hillard St., Providence, R. I. 
Pond, Harold, Sgt., 6044 Woodlawn Ave., Chicago, 111. 

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Potter, Clifford B., Pvt., 4646 Drexel Blvd., Chicago, 111. 
Powers, Thomas P., Pvt., 1842 W. Fourth St., Davenport, la. 
Preston, Alfred B., Pvt., Eldorado Springs, Mo. 

Quinlan, Robert E., Pvt., East Dubuque, 111. 

Rattell, Howard N., Pvt., Box 12, Rudolph, Wis. 

Rector, Alburn C, Pvt, 1125 Granville Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Regan, William A., Pvt., 3225 Fulton St., Chicago, 111. 

Reno, Robert R., Jr., Pvt., 534 N. Elmwood Ave., Oak Park, 111. 

Rice, Charles B., Jr., Pvt., 710 Corn Exchange Bank Bldg., Chicago, 

111. 
Richardson, Keith K., 2nd Lieut., 1637 Marshall Field Annex, 

Chicago, 111. 
Robbins, Lawrence B., Major, 11 S. La Salle St., Chicago, 111. 
Rosse, Jerry, Pvt., Canastata, N. Y. 
Roth, Edson C, Pvt., 357 Chicago Ave., Hinsdale, 111. 
Rowe, John F., Pvt., 6322 Wayne Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Ruppert, Andrew F., 1951 Belmont Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Russell, Henry T., Pvt., Box 190, Carbondale, Penn. 
Russo, Guiseppe, Pvt., 247 N. Simpson St., West Philadelphia, Penn. 
Ryan, Harold J., Corp., 1354 Bryn Mawr Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Sanders, Clarence A., Pvt., Iron Springs, Penn. 

Sargeant, Charles F., Pvt., White Bear, Minn. 

Satterlee, Hugh W., Pvt., 101 Park Ave., New York, N. Y. 

Savage, George R., Corp., 1424 Hollywood Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Schatz, Edwin L., Pvt., 617 W. Front St., Wheaton, 111. 

Schatz, Loring M., Pvt., 120 Main St., Wheaton, 111. 

Schilling, Elmer H., Pvt., 6056 Broadway, Chicago, 111. 

Schneider, Arnold G., Pvt., 3024 Broadway. Chicago, 111. 

Scrymiger, Roy C, Pvt., 4104 Colorado Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Searles, Donald K., Pvt., ZIl S. Madison St., La Grange, 111. 

Sexauer, Loren D., Corp., 6447 Kenwood Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Shinkle, Merle W., Horseshoer, 5942 W. Huron St., Chicago, 111. 

Shultz, Bruno W., Pvt, 3404 N. Lavergne Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Simpson, John J., Pvt., 7122 Rhodes Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Smith, Eldred, Pvt., Route 2, Box 52, Okolona, Miss. 

Smith, Randolph D., Pvt., 4907 West End Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Smouse, George F., Pvt., Henrietta, Penn. 

Sofa, John, Pvt., 745 Lehigh St., Georgetown, Wilkesbarre, Penn. 

Sostheim, Elmer D., Pvt., 4837 Prairie Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Spaulding, Elmer, Pvt, Spaulding, la. 

Spence, James C, Corp., 9811 Longwood Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Stack, John R., Pvt., 4645 Evans Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Starrs, Albert L., Pvt., 4626 N. Hermitage Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Stein, Morris, Pvt., 2118 S. Fifth St, Philadelphia, Penn 

Stone, Howard R., Capt., 320 Main St., Evanston, 111. 

Strobeck, Leonard C, Pvt., 4946 W. Nelson St., Chicago, 111. 

Sturges, Arthur, Mech., 11052 S. Irving Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Sturges, George, Sgt., 11052 S. Irving Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Sullivan, Bernard J. M., Pvt., 5140 S. Kolin Ave., Chicago, III. 

Suter, Francis E., Pvt., 4812 Langley Ave., Chicago, 111. 

93 



Tahl, Harry C, Pvt., Marshall Field & Co., Dept. 10, 215 W. 

Adams St., Chicago, 111. 
Thompson, Arthur, Cook, 7420 Harvard Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Thorson, Philip S., Mech., 176 S. Washington St., Hinsdale, 111. 
Trevey, Virgel K., Pvt., Box 151, Montgomery, W. Va. 
Tubach, Andre G., Pvt., 6278 Champlain Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Tuszynski, Andrew, Pvt., R. F. D. 7, Erie, Penn. 
Tuttle, Roger, Corp., 8023 S. Sangamon St., Chicago, 111. 
Tveter, Trygve, Pvt., 2455 N. Springfield Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Unger, David S. M., Corp., 129 Harris Ave., La Grange, 111. 

Vandervort, Stokes T., Pvt., Weston, W. Va. 

Van Hoesen, William H., Supply Sgt., 6334 Greenwood Ave., 

Chicago, 111. 
Vavrinek, Henry J., Jr., Pvt., 629 Clinton Ave., Oak Park, 111. 
Vinnedge, Al. S., 2nd Lieut., 5508 Hyde Park Blvd., Chicago, III 

Waage, James M., Pvt, 6611 University Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Wallace, Anthony, Pvt, 877 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Mass. 
Wallace, Richard J., Pvt., 254 W. 115th St., New York, N. Y. 
Wallace, Wilfred, Pvt., 6542 Sangamon St., Chicago, 111. 
Walstrom, Walter, Pvt., Route 2, Box 4, Kane, Penn. 
Walter, Alfred J., Pvt., 125 N. Grant St.. Hinsdale, 111. 
Ward, Barney L., Pvt., Seaboard Air Line, Saint Petersburg, Fla. 
Warden, Sidney C., Corp., 4336 Gladys Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Wesoloski, Joseph F., Pvt., 5001 Roscoe St., Chicago, 111. 
Wheeler, Robert W., Corp., Paw Paw, 111. 
Wilkes, Fred J., Corp., 6412 Kimbark Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Wilkinson, William A., Jr., Pvt., 10876 Prospect Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Williams, Robert, Horseshoer, R. F. D. 3, Weston, W. Va. 
Williams, Robert F., Pvt., 1846 Anthony Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Willingham, Turner L., Pvt., Vanderbilt, Penn. 
Wilson, Lawrence M., Pvt., 1039 N. Spaulding Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Wiseman, Carlos D., 2nd Lieut., 6338 Ellis Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Wright Arthur H., Sgt., 5600 Glenwood Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Yardley, George H., Jr., Corp., 244 Clinton Ave., Oak Park, Ml. 

Young, Leroy L., Pvt., 4325 Prairie Ave., Chicago, 111. 

Youngs, Phineas R., Jr., Pvt., 6515 Kenwood Ave., Chicago. 111. 



94 



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